Career Downloads

He had no IT background, no plan, and was living in a tree house between jobs. Then one interview sent him somewhere he never expected. Chris Day grew up in Silicon Valley, bounced through pizza shops, Chili's, and bartending gigs, and graduated UC Santa Cruz with a self-designed degree in communication, sociology, and psychology. He had no roadmap for what came next. What happened next was an interview for an account executive role that turned into an offer to teach software - and a career that has now stretched more than two decades, all the way to founding a SaaS company he is still actively building today. This conversation covers the full arc: how Chris went from software instructor to consultant to custom software developer to building A1 Enterprise, an 18-module enterprise risk management platform that every single feature of has come directly from real users. WHAT CHRIS DAY DOES NOW: Chris is the Founder and CEO of A1 Enterprise, a SaaS company specializing in enterprise risk management software. The A1 Honeycomb platform covers 18 modules across risk, compliance, workers compensation, insurance, and more - all built from user feedback over 16 years of product development. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION: The accidental pivot is still a pivot Chris did not plan to go into tech. A wrong-turn interview and a suggested redirect from an interviewer landed him in front of a classroom. He said yes anyway. That moment started everything. Bombing a class is data, not a verdict When Chris failed his first Microsoft Access class - ill-prepared, with his father in surgery that day - he did not quit. He went back to the drawing board, studied harder, and within three to six months was teaching every Access class the center offered. Teaching and doing together is dynamite Chris's own words. He learned that knowing your material well enough to teach it is one thing. Actually building something for a real client changes everything. The two together accelerated his growth faster than either could alone. Know your limits - and then push them Chris was not a developer. He knew that. He acknowledged it, asked for help, and used that awareness to build around his gaps rather than pretend they did not exist. The distinction, as he put it, is between knowing your limits and staying within them versus pushing them while asking for help. Your customer base is your best product team After 16 years of development, Chris says every feature in A1 Enterprise has come from a user. No assumptions, no guessing. Real needs from real people, built in. TOPICS COVERED: - Growing up in Silicon Valley with no career direction - Working through food service and bartending in his 20s - How a self-designed degree in communication, sociology, and psychology prepared him for tech - Discovering the software instructor role at New Horizons computer training center - What it took to teach technology to 30 different types of learners in one room - The Microsoft Access failure that changed how he prepared for everything - How moonlighting consulting gigs came out of his teaching clients - The construction company project that launched A1 Enterprise - Presenting a live web application to 100 people from a personal laptop with no IT support - Building a remote development team out of a garage using Citrix and a T1 line - The 2008 market crash decision to stop doing custom work and build a product - Sixteen years of ERM platform development under the radar - The 2018 rebrand that brought A1 Honeycomb into the open - Working with UNLV Lee Business School students - Why staying open matters more than having a plan WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR: - Anyone in their 20s who feels behind and does not have a clear direction yet - People considering a career pivot into tech without a traditional tech background - Early-career professionals trying to decide whether to stay in a role or make a move - Self-taught learners who want to know how far curiosity and self-study can take you - Founders or aspiring entrepreneurs interested in how software products are built from real customer feedback - Anyone who has failed at something on the job and wondered whether to push through CONNECT WITH CHRIS DAY: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/a1enterprisechrisday/ ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS: Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday. Connect with Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249

He broke the family computer in 8th grade trying to teach himself DOS. The repair shop he took it to hired him for the summer. That is how Jesse Taylor's career in technology began.Jesse Taylor is the Senior Manager of Cloud and Systems Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His path to that role spans Apple retail, college newspaper IT, media companies, a hotel property that declared bankruptcy, and a first month on the job that collided with Hurricane Sandy. None of it was planned. All of it was intentional.Jesse grew up in Napa, California, and moved to Las Vegas when his father, a Department of Defense employee, had to relocate to keep his retirement after the BRAC military base closures in the early 1990s. He worked at the Apple Fashion Show store during college, helped build Apple enterprise environments at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, and spent years supporting Mac-heavy newsrooms for Greenspun Media Group. He later served as virtual CTO for Niche Media's luxury magazine portfolio - a role that put him in a New York data center days after Hurricane Sandy flooded the floors below it.WHAT JESSE TAYLOR DOES NOW:Jesse leads the Cloud and Systems Engineering team at UNLV, overseeing server virtualization, storage, and enterprise infrastructure. He previously managed identity and access management for the university for over six years, including a campus-wide migration to Okta during the pandemic. He chairs SIM Nevada and advocates for broadband access policy across the state.KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:The art of listening is a technical skillApple retail trained Jesse to evaluate needs and find the right-sized solution - not the most expensive, not the cheapest. That skill carried across every role he held afterward.Work retail at least onceJesse believes retail teaches people skills that technical training cannot: reading emotions, tracking speech patterns, knowing when to keep talking and when to stop. He calls those skills essential for anyone working in IT.You have to leave where you love working to growEarly in his Apple career, a trainer told Jesse that sometimes the only way to develop is to leave a role you love and go get skills you cannot get where you are. He applied that lesson repeatedly, moving through organizations to build range.The smartest person still has to be a good team playerSkill gets you in the room. Attitude keeps you in the conversation. Jesse is direct: you can be the most talented person on the team and still be someone no one wants to work with.People are watching even when you don't think they areMultiple roles in Jesse's career came through former managers or colleagues who remembered how he worked. Not because he networked for it - because he did the job well and treated people well while he did it.TOPICS COVERED:Breaking his home PC in 8th grade and landing his first tech job because of itApple retail training and right-sizing solutions for customersWhy every IT professional should have a retail job in their backgroundMac enterprise skills built at the Art Institute and Greenspun Media GroupPrioritizing IT tickets and learning to work with executivesMoving Niche Media to Google Workspace in one day during Hurricane SandyReturning to UNLV and building the identity and access management functionPlanning and executing a campus-wide Okta migration during the pandemicBroadband access advocacy and his father's internet setup in rural NevadaEduroam and why UNLV students can open a laptop at Stanford and get online instantlySIM Nevada growing from under 15 members during the pandemic to over 100WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:Early-career IT professionals wondering if they need to stay in one place to growAnyone moving from technical roles toward engineering leadership or strategyTech professionals thinking about community involvement and professional organizationsIT managers working on large-scale migrations who want a real account of what planning actually looks likeAnyone who has stayed too long at a job they loved because they were comfortableCONNECT WITH JESSE TAYLOR:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessetaylorlv/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249

Episode Information Show NotesWhat does it look like to build a tech career when no one hands you anything?Jordan McConnell ran network operations at Langley Air Force Base with a top-secret clearance, supporting 100,000 people across 15 bases. When he left active duty, the civilian job market didn’t care about any of that. So he took help desk calls getting yelled at, rebuilt from the bottom, and funded every step of his own career development without waiting for an employer to do it for him. That journey eventually landed him at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas – where HR wrote a solutions architect role specifically for him – and later at New American Funding as a Cloud Engineer doing FinOps work he discovered at a dinner and taught himself on his own time and his own dime.This conversation also goes somewhere most tech career podcasts don’t. Jordan has lived with Crohn’s disease for 17 years, had multiple major surgeries, and still shows up every day. He talks honestly about how chronic illness shapes the way he works, why it became a source of fuel rather than a reason to stop, and what he wants other people living with invisible illness to know.WHAT JORDAN DOES NOW:Jordan is a Cloud Engineer at New American Funding, a nationally recognized mortgage lender based in Southern California. He holds FinOps Practitioner and FOCUS Analyst certifications along with several Microsoft Azure credentials, and he pitched a cost-savings plan to the company’s CISO within 90 to 120 days of joining.KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Self-fund your career when no one else willJordan bought his own certifications and paid out of pocket to attend FinOps X in San Diego. New American Funding hired him because he showed up with six months of self-directed learning they hadn’t asked for.Closed mouths don’t get fedHe told the managing director of a Las Vegas news station that his childhood dream was to be a weatherman. His 11-year-old son got a full behind-the-scenes tour. He told a CISO at an executive dinner he was always looking for opportunity. That conversation eventually became a job offer.Ego is not your amigoAfter being laid off from MGM Resorts, Jordan posted publicly on LinkedIn asking for help finding a job. A month later he had one. Humility opened the door his resume hadn’t.People don’t earn your respect, they lose itJordan starts every relationship with trust and respect given. He keeps his baseline consistent, treats the CEO and the janitor the same way, and lets people’s behavior over time tell him who belongs in his circle.It’s easy to do hard things when you’re always doing hard thingsLiving with Crohn’s disease for 17 years has meant daily symptoms and multiple major surgeries. Jordan describes it as fuel – when you’re always uncomfortable, doing uncomfortable things gets easier.TOPICS COVERED:• Discovering FinOps through a dinner conversation and pivoting on the spot• Self-funding certifications and attending a national conference out of pocket• “Closed mouths don’t get fed” – how speaking up created real opportunity• Air Force career: top-secret clearance, Langley AFB, supporting 100,000 people• Going from Staff Sergeant to help desk calls getting cursed at• Day 91 of a 90-day contract: badge stopped working, week before Christmas• Getting 5 Azure certifications in 12 months without waiting for permission• Being the only engineer at a table full of CISOs and CTOs• The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas: becoming the first solutions architect• Living with Crohn’s disease for 17 years and choosing not to use it as a crutch• Building your inner circle through discernment and honest feedback• Character vs. reputation: you don’t control one, but you control the otherWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Tech professionals who are self-funding their own career development and want to know it pays off• Veterans transitioning from military to civilian tech roles who feel like they’re starting over• Anyone living with a chronic illness or invisible condition navigating a professional career• Engineers who want to move into leadership or management roles• People who’ve been laid off and aren’t sure whether to ask for help publicly• Anyone who wants to get better at networking without keeping it genericCONNECT WITH JORDAN McCONNELL:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanbmcconnell/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about the background and their experiences to help you pick up some actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode, I have with me Jordan McConnell. He and I connected recently through LinkedIn. I’ve looked at his profile, a lot of what he had doing. He is in the FinOps world now, which is something that I’ve been introduced in my current role. We got to talking. We met up in person. Great guy has his own podcast about something completely different, which we’ll touch on in this conversation, just the blend of your personal life and then your professional life. Just some of the challenges around that. With that, I’ll introduce Jordan. Jordan McConnell: Hey Manuel. Thank you so much for having me. I’m grateful to be here. Manuel Martinez: I’m excited to talk a little bit more about you. I know you and I have shared some of those details, but for you to share that with other people who may or may not be going through the same thing, but something similar. I think in every conversation, there’s always something we can take away from something that somebody said. Jordan McConnell: I definitely agree. Manuel Martinez: So if you can start by telling us a little bit about what your current role is and some of the responsibilities. Jordan McConnell: Definitely. So I work for a company called New American Funding. They’re a mortgage lender based out of southern California. They actually just won, I think – they won a lot of awards recently. They’re one of the best companies to work for in the United States. They’re one of the best companies for women to work for the United States. One of the best mortgage lenders to work for in the United States. I’m beyond grateful to work for them. I’m a cloud engineer for them. What that means is so when people go to their jobs and log in, like manual, password, those kind of things. I work on all the stuff, infrastructure behind that to allow people to do their jobs everyday. Manuel Martinez: And it’s – It’s interesting, right? Because a lot of times people don’t realize all the work that goes behind. They’re just like, “I log in. It either works or it doesn’t.” There’s so much more behind that. Jordan McConnell: Definitely. I’ve learned that throughout my career. There’s behind the veil, kind of a Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. There’s so much going on. For people that are interested in this career field, there’s so much to learn. That’s kind of why I got into FinOps, is that I was working on just regular infrastructure, like log into your computer stuff. I was really interested in the cloud. I worked on different certifications. I got – a little tangent, but I was introduced at a dinner for a guy from Salesforce. I learned that this person was managing $100 million, something like that, like a month in cloud spend. He was telling me, “Hey, Jordan, have you heard of FinOps?” I’m like, “No, I haven’t.” He’s like, “What is it?” That’s how to optimize resources and how to save money to provide the maximum business value to an organization. That sounds like something that, to me, saving money or making money for an organization is how you stay in business. With that person’s lead, I got my FinOps practitioner certification. I got my FOCUS analyst certification. I went to the FinOps X conference in San Diego last year. I met a lot of great people over there, too. This year I had a great time. I took all that knowledge. I took those certifications and all that knowledge with me. I was able to take that to a new American funding. I was given the opportunity about 90 days after, 90, 120 days after I got there to pitch, to propose, I should say, a cost savings plan to the CISO of New American Funding himself. Folks listening out there, and actually that entire journey was self-funded and believing in myself. That’s probably one of the biggest things I wanted to talk about is just having faith having faith in your own ability. Don’t let other people tell you what you can and can’t do. That’s what I did. The certifications, I bought those out of my own pocket. I funded the entire trip to San Diego out of my own pocket. Then when I left MGM ...

Episode Information Show NotesAt age seven, Juan Mazo told his family he would bring his mom’s family to America one day. By 26, he had done it. His mom hasn’t paid rent since 2015. And then he fell into depression.Juan built a tech career that most people would call a success from PC repair out of his aunt’s restaurant in Connecticut to hedge fund IT support in New York, to running the IT department at a clinical trials software company, to spending two years unemployed before landing at Veracode, where he has been a Solutions Architect Sales Engineer for seven years. But the most important parts of his story have less to do with titles and more to do with understanding what work is actually for, how to know what your time costs, and why hitting your goals does not automatically mean you know what comes next.This is a conversation about career development that goes deeper than certifications and job titles. Juan talks about how seven years in application security sales taught him to tie tech work to business outcomes, why he reads and learns constantly but always asks himself what he is actually doing with that knowledge, and what he figured out about his own happiness during two years of reading, failing, and starting over.WHAT JUAN MAZO DOES NOW:Juan is a Solutions Architect Sales Engineer, at a company that scans applications for security vulnerabilities. He works with organizations to understand their security risks, connect security initiatives to business outcomes, and build the case for why secure code protects revenue. He has been there seven years and genuinely loves the work.KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Security Must Connect to RevenueYou cannot go to a business and say you need something because everyone else is doing it. You have to tie it to a revenue outcome, shorter sales cycles, more audits passed, more customers closed. That framing gets initiatives approved.Your Time Has a Dollar Value Per HourJuan learned this early: when he found out his phone calls cost $200 an hour, it changed how he thought about meetings, decisions, and where to spend his energy. He applies the same logic to personal decisions.Failing Businesses Was the Best Education He BoughtHe came out of two years unemployed with $20,000 in debt and businesses that all failed. He compares it to an MBA that cost $400,000 less.Knowledge Without Execution Is Just EntertainmentReading, watching videos, going to conferences none of it builds a skill until you do something with it. The gap between learning and doing is where most people stay stuck.Achieving Your Goals Can Break You If You Haven’t Asked What’s NextWhen the thing you have been working toward since childhood is done, you will not automatically know what to do. Juan hit that wall at 26 and spent two years figuring out what actually makes him happy.TOPICS COVERED:– Building an IT side business as a teenager from a restaurant bulletin board– How a recruiter’s coaching before his first interview shaped how he shows up professionally– White glove IT service at a hedge fund and what that taught him about people skills– Becoming the first sysadmin at a 10-year-old company with no security policies– Writing security policies from a NIST framework for the first time– Learning to qualify sales opportunities and stop wasting everyone’s time– The million-dollar DocuSign that went directly to the CEO and what it cost him– Resistance to cloud in 2015 and resistance to AI now – same pattern, different decade– How he thinks about the cost of a meeting and whether it is worth the combined hourly rate in the room– Reading 26 books in a year at age 26– Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie– The businesses that all failed and what he learned from each one– Achieving his childhood goal of bringing his family to America and falling into depression after– What he needs to be happy: a good internet connection, working on cars, and family around him– Three things you cannot outrun: finances, health, and relationships– How he found his people at Veracode and later at Defcon– Using Facebook groups as a curated learning tool for cars, beer, and cybersecurity– Why community accelerates learning faster than any courseWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:– IT professionals wondering whether to move from technical roles into sales engineering or solutions architecture– People who feel like they are learning a lot but not sure what to do with it– Anyone who has hit a career goal and found themselves asking “now what?”– Security and IT professionals who want to get better at tying their work to business outcomes– Early-career tech workers building skills outside of their job title– Anyone who has started a side business or is thinking about it and wants to hear what failing actually looks like– People trying to figure out what happiness means for them before they spend another decade chasing the wrong thingCONNECT WITH JUAN MAZO:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanmazo/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences. For today’s episode I have with me Juan Mazo. He and I met a few months ago at a government conference. We got to…he was working one of the booths near where I was. We got to talking, some shared interests outside of work. It just happened to be around the time that the NFR, so the National Finals Rodeo, was happening. So we started continuing that conversation. Had a couple of ones after that and discovered we have a lot of shared interest both from a tech side, outside of work. So again, this is going to be a fun conversation for me. So with that I’ll introduce Juan. Juan Mazo: Thank you for that. Thanks for having me over and my name is Juan Mazo. I currently work over at Veracode, I’m a solutions architect sales engineer, and I’ve been there for about seven years. I honestly love that job. It’s one of the coolest things that have happened to me. It’s a great opportunity for me. And one of the main reasons I want to say that is because when I actually started at that company, I was unemployed for two years. And the cool thing about it is I ended up in cybersecurity. Never really wanted to be in cybersecurity. I was always in IT though, right? So I ended up in this place. And the reason I really liked it is because it was a place where I didn’t think I had any real interest in it because I’ve always grown up around technology. But then when I got into application security, this is where you hear the stories of getting hacked, hackers, and things of that nature. And it really went down that route. And I’ve really enjoyed learning that for the last seven years. Manuel Martinez: Wow. So then it’s interesting. I know we’ll get to why no interest and some of the things that you did before that, which probably again, trying new things. So I’ve talked about it plenty of times where I thought I wanted to be a network person. I had no interest. Or I thought I had an interest, got into it. I’m like, “Yeah, this is not for me.” And I pivoted around. So then if you can tell us a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what you thought you might do for a career and then what you actually did to start your career. Juan Mazo: Sure. So I grew up over in Connecticut, a small beach town called West Haven. And what was interesting there was I always knew I wanted to be in technology. An interesting thing that’s happened is ever since I was a young kid, I grew up with a really massive family. I have like 45 first cousins. And my family, when I was probably around seven, they would ask me, “What do you want to grow up to be?” And I would be like a cop, a firefighter, normal stuff. And then they said, “What would you want to do with your life?” And I was like, “I would always want to bring my mom’s family to America one day.” And they looked at me and said, “That’s really expensive.” And she’s like one of 10. So they always said, “You’re going to need to make a lot of money.” And from that point on, my answer to them immediately at that really young age was, “I guess I’ll just make a lot of money.” Now, I haven’t made a lot of money, but it’s relative, especially when you’re a kid, especially growing up. But then fast forward to around, I’m 14 years old and I go to trade school. And in trade school, you can learn to be a plumber, electrician, or work in technology, which is what I ended up doing. And I ended up picking a trade at 14. I remember we were all in an auditorium after going through every single trade freshman year of high school. And...

Episode Information Show NotesKim Snyder graduated with three degrees in accounting, MIS, and entrepreneurship. Companies had no idea what to do with her. They weren’t ready for someone who wanted to do all three. So she built the career herself. Over the next 30+ years, Kim went from QA engineer to tech consultant to finance consultant to business owner, coach, and speaker. Her path wasn’t linear. It was strategic in some places and instinctive in others. She learned to read herself early knowing when she was bored, what she was actually good at, and how to ask for what she wanted before someone else decided for her. This conversation covers a lot of ground. How she navigated being a young woman in rooms full of skeptics. How she built a career through relationships she didn’t even call networking. How she still felt like a fraud 20 years in. And how she eventually figured out that holding back isn’t modesty, it’s selfishness. WHAT KIM SNYDER DOES NOW:Kim runs her own business focused on consulting, coaching, and speaking for corporate and small business clients. She also takes contract work in software test lead roles and mentors professionals through organizations like her local project management community and Startup Nevada. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Know your strengths then say them out loudIn corporate settings, people often stay quiet about what they’re good at. Kim learned that naming it clearly makes it easy for others to give you more of the work you actually want. The title/money/company ruleEvery time you consider a career move, at least one of three things should improve: your title, your compensation, or the company you’re joining. If a lateral move doesn’t improve any of them, it’s not worth making. Build your network before you need itKim’s entire career was fueled by relationships. Not formal networking just staying in touch. She recommends 30 minutes a week, five messages to people in your field. Most of the time, just checking in. Imposter syndrome doesn’t expireKim felt like a fraud walking into client sites 20 years into her career. What broke the cycle was catching herself giving other women the exact advice she wasn’t taking herself. “It’s not about me. It’s about them.”This is how Kim got past shyness in high-pressure client situations and on stage. She stopped thinking about how she was being perceived and focused on what the other person needed. Coaching vs. mentoring know the differenceA mentor guides you over time, often informally. A coach helps you move faster in a specific area and typically charges for it. An advocate inside your company positions you behind the scenes. Kim used all three at different points in her career. TOPICS COVERED:• Three degrees, one career: accounting, MIS, and entrepreneurship• First consulting role and what drove her toward problem-solving work• Being a young woman in tech leading with experience to earn credibility fast• The “title, money, or company” rule for every career transition• Switching from tech consulting to finance consulting over company objections• Using your existing relationships to find your next role• Why she preferred smaller companies that let her do more• Staying close to customers and avoiding the promotion-away-from-the-work trap• Why 80% across multiple things beats 100% on one• Imposter syndrome after two decades in the field• Toastmasters and the path from shy athlete to keynote speaker• Shyness as selfishness – a reframe worth sitting with• Coaching vs. mentoring vs. having an advocate in your corner• Paying for your own conferences and development when your company won’t WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Consultants at any level trying to figure out how to move from tech to business roles• Early-career professionals who aren’t sure how to advocate for themselves• Anyone who has ever felt like a fraud despite years of experience• Women navigating male-dominated technical environments• Professionals thinking about when to stay, when to move, and how to decide• Anyone who has been told to “just do the work” and wondered if there’s more to it CONNECT WITH KIM SNYDER:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimdsnyder/ ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday. Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for the guests I have today. So I have with me Kim Snyder. Her and I met at a networking event, which is going to be a recurring theme that’s going to come up throughout this conversation. And it’s really just going to show the power. You know, I’ve posted a lot about this on LinkedIn, just meeting people. You never know who you’re going to meet. And again, it’s not for what they can do for you. A lot of times, as you might be able to learn from them, maybe you’ll be able to help them out and, you know, maybe even bounce ideas or worst case, you make a new friend. So with that, I’ll introduce Kim. Kim Snyder: Hi Manuel. Happy to be here. Do you like Manny or Manuel? Manuel Martinez: Either one works for me. Kim Snyder: Okay. I like just Kim. Manuel Martinez: You like just Kim. So Manny works fine, if you feel more comfortable. You know, I go by Manuel, Kim Snyder: Perfect. Manuel Martinez: but people that I know, they’re like, hey, Manny, it makes it – Kim Snyder: Manuel works. Manuel Martinez: a little bit more comfortable. Kim Snyder: Manuel works. Well, thank you for inviting me. And this is awesome. And yeah, the networking theme is definitely prevalent in my life. And we met in a women in tech event, which is kind of in line with both of us. We have a tech background, right? But it also was very entrepreneurial, which I also have that background too. So it was good to see there was a handful of men there. And I always love to see men supporting women. So thank you for that. Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here and share anything I can to help somebody. So if they, if it saves them a day or a headache or something, I’m always happy to contribute, so. Manuel Martinez: Exactly. And that’s part of the reason – it’s one of the main reasons that I kind of started this podcast is just sharing other people’s experiences. Because I’ve done a lot of mentorship, I’ve done teaching, and people usually will ask like, hey, what do you recommend? Or you know, what should I do? And sometimes they’re going and asking questions that maybe I don’t have experience, but oh, I’ve talked to Kim. Kim mentioned this and they want more detail. And again, a friend of mine said, well, if you know these people, why don’t you just interview them instead of me having to be a third party or regurgitate, I can just share your story and your experiences? Kim Snyder: There you go. I love it. Yeah. So it saves you time and it helps somebody else. Right. Manuel Martinez: Exactly. So to start off, if you can tell me a little bit about your current role and responsibilities, just so that people get a sense of who Kim is today. Kim Snyder: Wow. So I am a business owner and I do contract work for corporate. And I also do speaking and coaching and consulting in the corporate space and also the small business space, which is probably a big turn from the typical corporate route that I was at, you know, five, 10 years ago, even a couple of years ago. So sometimes we have control over a career and sometimes we don’t, right? Manuel Martinez: Yeah. Kim Snyder: So I have a contract role with a former corporate client of mine and I’m in there and I’m a test lead for software, which is something I’ve never done before. But because I like to, I like to learn things and I’m like, sure, I’ll give it a try. I’ve been on projects for 20 years. So how hard can it be, right? Manuel Martinez: And of course, being able to pick up those skills along the way and you’re like, maybe I don’t know how to do this, but I have other relevant transferable skills. And maybe it’s even just the knowledge of knowing I figured out other things in the past. I’m going to do it again. Kim Snyder: Yeah. And I mean, so, you know, I’ve been on enterprise wide projects for the last 20 or 30 years. And in that, you know, even though they were smaller or a subset of what I’m doing now, you still pick up things, right? So it’s still running a large project at a company, um, products that I’m not as familiar with, but look, I’m resourceful. ...

Episode Information Show NotesWhat do you do when you get laid off at the biggest project management conference in the world? You work the room, go home, and build your own company.Parmjit Kaur did not set out to be a project manager. She wanted to be a Bollywood actress, then a doctor, then a teacher, then a radio host. What she became was one of the more interesting career stories you will hear – born in Scotland, raised in England, claiming New Jersey, and now running her own consultancy in Las Vegas. Her path moved from retail sales at Macy’s to door-to-door fragrance sales to healthcare IT to program management, and eventually to building and leading the PMI Southern Nevada chapter as president before a layoff at the PMI Global Summit pushed her to go out on her own. This conversation covers the career, the setbacks, the framework she built from all of it, and the community she has grown along the way.WHAT PARMJIT DOES NOW:Parmjit runs her own project management consultancy, where she takes on project management contracts across different industries. She is also an active public speaker and the host of the Your Life Projectized podcast. At the time of this episode, she is managing a large website modernization project for a community-facing organization.KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Sales teaches you something a job description never willThe law of averages is real. Parmjit credits door-to-door and healthcare IT sales with building the resilience and communication instincts she still uses in project management today.The kindergartner test for communicationWhen sharing information with a team or stakeholders, ask yourself: could a kindergartner walk away understanding what you just explained? It is not about being simple. It is about closing the gap between what you said and what they heard.Stop waiting for the annual reviewParmjit applied the Agile concept of sprint retrospectives to her own career – seeking feedback at regular intervals instead of waiting six months or a year to find out she had been doing something wrong.The CPR frameworkCommunication, Project Management, and Resiliency. Parmjit says these three things are all you need to revive any project, any business, or any season of life. The framework grew directly out of her real experiences: a house fire, a misdiagnosis, three car incidents in seven days, and a layoff she did not see coming.Community is built on authenticity, not utilityPeople can feel when you only want something from them. Parmjit’s approach to building a professional community is rooted in genuine interest, servant leadership values from her Sikh upbringing, and the kind of human connection that does not start with an agenda.TOPICS COVERED:• From retail sales to door-to-door fragrance sales and healthcare IT• The law of averages and learning to hear no without stopping• Growing up in a conservative Indian household and developing her voice• How a coast-to-coast healthcare speed dating program became her entry point into project management• What the PMP certification formalized that years of experience had not• Failing the PMP in 2018 while also training for a bodybuilding competition• Passing the PMP during COVID after a month of daily study sessions with people from around the world• Her first speaking experience at a HIMSS conference for 200+ physicians – and the accidental laugh• Five years on the PMI Southern Nevada chapter board, including serving as president• Why she applies Agile sprint retrospectives to her own career development• Building a professional community through authentic human connection• Getting a layoff call while standing inside the PMI Global Summit in Atlanta• Launching her own consultancy and speaking business three years ago• The CPR framework and how it was developed through real-life setbacksWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Project managers at any level looking for a more grounded perspective on the career path• Professionals in sales or client-facing roles considering a transition into project management• Anyone who has experienced a layoff and is wondering what comes next• People who want to build a real professional community, not just a LinkedIn contact list• Career changers who came from a non-traditional background and are figuring out how to make it work• Anyone studying for the PMP who needs to hear an honest take on what the certification actually does and does not doCONNECT WITH PARMJIT KAUR:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parmjitkaur/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences. So for today’s episode, I have with me Parmjit Kaur. Her and I connected on LinkedIn, she’s somebody I had followed. I saw a lot of what she’s doing in the community, a lot of the speaking that she’s done, looked at her profile and there was just so much. We connected, I got to learn more about her. So again, I’m excited to learn more along with everybody else. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Parmjit. Parmjit Kaur: Okay, yeah, Manny, thank you. So firstly, should I call you Manuel or do you prefer Manny? Manuel Martinez: Either one works for me. So normally I, Manuel’s obviously my legal name, but as I get to know people, I just tell them like, “Hey, you can call me Manny.” So whatever you feel comfortable with. Parmjit Kaur: Okay, absolutely, yeah. I’m very big on what folks like to be called and how they like their names pronounced, so thank you. Manuel Martinez: Same, and that’s why I remember asking you, like, how would you pronounce your name? So I really tried to do my best to say, “Okay, how do you like your name being pronounced and help me pronounce it properly?” Yeah, and I really appreciated the question, thank you. Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind, tell me a little bit about what your current role and responsibilities are so that people can get an understanding of who Parmjit is. Parmjit Kaur: Sure, sure, absolutely. So right now my current role, I have my own business, so I have a project management consultancy, and so I take on different project management contracts. I’m not at liberty necessarily to say who. I’m working with currently who my client is, but currently I’m working on a very big website modernization project. So I’m working with an organization. They have a great website, but that website hasn’t necessarily been maybe revamped in some time, and so we’re looking to modernize that website to ensure not just a great experience for employees that utilize the website, but community members who access that website. Manuel Martinez: And I know that there’s a lot of skills that kind of go into project management and things of that, so I’m excited to get into that and how you develop those skills over time. Parmjit Kaur: Yeah, absolutely, I look forward to talking about it. Manuel Martinez: So now if you can tell us a little bit about kind of where you grew up and then eventually what kind of got your career started and what you thought you were probably gonna do and then eventually how you started. Parmjit Kaur: Sure, so this is gonna be a little bit of a long story. Manuel Martinez: Even better. Parmjit Kaur: So you might be surprised to know I’m actually born in Scotland, so that is where my life started. I’m born in Scotland, I moved to England. I lived with my grandparents for quite some time. So my father’s side of the family is from the London area of England, and then my mother is, her family’s from the West Midlands. So I lived there for about six, seven years before we migrated to the US. First to Pittsburgh and then we went to New Jersey. So I lived in New Jersey for a majority of my life, but I moved around a lot. I’ve lived in California, I lived in Florida, I lived in Kentucky, I lived in Connecticut. I feel like I’m missing a place in there somewhere, but yeah, that’s for the most part, I grew up in New Jersey. So that is what I claim, I’m a Jersey girl through and through. Manuel Martinez: That’s gotta be, at the time you may not enjoy kind of moving around, but at the same time, I would think that just in the little bit of experience that I’ve had traveling within the US and to other countries, like it brings you a lot of exposure that probably we don’t realize it at the time, but later influences how we approach people, our careers and things of that nature. Parmjit Kaur: Oh, sure, absolutely. I talk about that a lot. Being exposed to, well, travel...

Episode Information Show NotesHe has spent 30 years in tech sales. He has almost never gone through a formal interview.Every major opportunity in Rodney Detrick’s career came from a relationship he had already built. Not a resume. Not an online application. Someone who knew him, trusted him, and opened a door. This episode is about how that happens – and what else Rodney has learned in three decades of selling, leading, and teaching others to do both.Rodney is the Executive VP of Growth at ConnectOn, a cybersecurity company with 40 years in the space. He has been a trainer with the Dale Carnegie organization for nearly 20 years. He started his career as a zoology major, found his voice competing on a college forensics team, and stumbled into tech sales through a family connection in the early 1990s. He has never looked back.WHAT RODNEY DETRICK DOES NOW:Rodney leads growth at ConnectOn, a Tampa-based cybersecurity company specializing in ransomware remediation, data governance, and compliance. He also actively trains professionals through the Dale Carnegie Nevada team, working with companies on human communication, leadership, and presentation skills.KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Your network is your career infrastructureIn 30 years, Rodney has almost never gone through a formal interview. Every major opportunity came through a relationship he had already built.Giving people the leash is how they growIf someone is struggling, jumping in and doing it for them doesn’t develop them creating the conditions for them to figure it out does.Dale Carnegie works because it starts with people, not processMost training starts with tactics. Dale Carnegie starts with human communication, and after nearly 20 years as a trainer, Rodney keeps seeing the same thing: the principles stay in people’s heads long after the program ends.Common sense is not common practiceKnowing Dale Carnegie’s principles and actually applying them every day in how you interact with your staff, co-workers, and clients are two very different things.Scripting is about structure, not readingA professional magician taught Rodney this lesson. Performers who wing it often sound like they are, and the same goes for sales calls and presentations.TOPICS COVERED:• Going from zoology major to competitive speaker to tech sales• The family connection that opened his first tech door• Working at a rhino sanctuary in South Africa with his daughter• What his first mentor told him six months into the job• Walking past your predecessor on day one carrying their boxes• Moving from inside sales to management without the traditional path• Why giving people autonomy beats delegation• How to have difficult coaching conversations when you’ve already built the relationship• Dale Carnegie, why it’s different from other training programs• The “incident, action, benefit” formula and how to use it off the cuff• What amateur magic taught him about professional preparation• Why mentors matter at every stage – including year 60• How to approach professional networking without an agendaWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Early-career professionals trying to understand why relationships matter more than applications• Sales professionals who want to sharpen their communication and preparation• Tech leaders who were great individual contributors but are still figuring out the leadership part• Anyone who has heard of Dale Carnegie but never understood what makes it different• Professionals at any stage who want to think differently about building a networkCONNECT WITH RODNEY DETRICK:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodneydetrick/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences To help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career So for today’s episode I have with me Rodney Dietrich him and I connected over LinkedIn and We got talking about technology and Dale Carnegie and Toast masters, which we’ll get into in the conversation but again there was just a lot of Great conversation that came out of that a lot of tie-ins into just dealing with your careers So I thought he would be a great person to come in. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Rodney Rodney Detrick: Thanks, Manuel. Appreciate you having me today looking forward to it Manuel Martinez: Yeah, it’s gonna be a great conversation Especially just based on the ones that you and I have had in the past Manuel Martinez: Yes, they seem to come very naturally. We had lots to talk about right out of the gate. I love that. Manuel Martinez: Exactly. So if you can just, so that people get a sense of who you are If you can tell us a little bit about what your current role is and some of the responsibilities In that role. Rodney Detrick: Sure my current role is Executive Vice President for Growth With a company called ConnectOn we’re cybersecurity company long practice with ransomware remediation, but we also have practices around data governance and compliance Pretty old company been around for about 40 years and based out of Tampa, Florida But I’m here Local in Nevada recent transplant from Southern California Manuel Martinez: And you know I remember that was kind of one of the things that we kind of bonded over is just meeting people in the local community Which was fantastic. Rodney Detrick: Yeah, absolutely and and this is you know, 30 years plus of being in the tech world and And all of that my entire Life has been in Southern California I’ve never lived anywhere but San Diego and Orange County and finally I Lifted the anchor and my wife and I decided to make a move and and moved to Nevada so been here since last April and Been and found the the area very welcoming and and folks like you or like, yeah, let’s get together Let’s have coffee and get to know each other. So it’s a great new place to be and to reestablish fresh network here. Manuel Martinez: So now if you can tell us a little bit more about you know, you already mentioned you’re from Southern California But just a little bit about like where you grew up and then eventually, you know kind of what? Maybe what you thought you were gonna do as a child and then you know, eventually what got your career started. Rodney Detrick: That’s a loaded question Yeah, as you can imagine so and some of this I don’t know that I’ve even ever shared with you before but I grew up in San Diego born in Orange County, but grew up for the most part in San Diego and Between those two areas You know grow up all the way through high school that ended up in Orange County and then started my college career also in the in the local area and So and then you know after that got married Had all the kids all three kids or all, you know adults now also in that same area But growing up and going into college and my initial Start was I was a zoology major Yeah, I had every intention of You know being a veterinarian or you know being the first Steve Irwin or something something like that working with animals. I pictured myself doing something like that. My dad was a Biology teacher and professor for many years early in his career. And so, you know growing up we had a lot of vacations that were very very outdoorsy and You know focused on wildlife and biology and so I just grew up loving those types of things Yeah, so it was between zoologists and I was thinking about maybe Really focusing in on herpetology, Manuel Martinez: which is what? Rodney Detrick: the study of reptiles and amphibians always been a big reptile person So yeah, so that was the initial thought so I did about my first year of college was as a zoology major and then that shifted to speech communication and that’s because I got involved in forensics program Forensics in the college world is competitive speech. So it’s debate other more kind of artsy or Almost like artistic type Like prose and persuasive speaking and other types of competitive speaking events. So my next couple of years in college I spent on a forensics team and traveling all over the country and competing in in speaking events Not debate. I wasn’t much of a debate person But I did a lot of the other events and that really really had a big impact on me and where I thought I might end up career wise I just not only was it a lot of fun and it was like being on a sports team except without all that sweating and working out and And it was a great, you know social place and if I look back on my college years I think I’m probably lear...

Episode Information Show NotesThe people you least expect are watching your career. Rhonda Lemke built nearly 30 years in technology on that truth.Her career started at Arthur Anderson, where she worked as a secretary and executive assistant. A mentor asked her at 19 to quit her job, move in with her, and go to college. That moment set everything in motion. From there, Rhonda worked her way through help desk management, 15 years at Accenture in IT consulting and change management, network operations at cars.com and Sears.com, director-level roles at Arthur J. Gallagher and Culinary Health Fund, and eventually Director of Cloud Infrastructure at a healthcare AI company and Caylent, an AWS partner. She earned her MBA at 52. She is now in real estate in Las Vegas.The through-line in every move was not technical expertise. It was the ability to read a room, communicate across teams, and earn trust before she needed it.WHAT RHONDA DOES NOW:After nearly 30 years in technology, Rhonda recently transitioned to real estate in Las Vegas. Her technology career spanned help desk management, IT consulting, network operations, service management, and cloud infrastructure. She holds an AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification and an MBA.KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Advocacy Works Both WaysThe people who moved Rhonda’s career forward weren’t her closest work friends, they were the ones quietly watching her work ethic from across the room.Soft Skills Are Harder to Teach Than Technical SkillsShe was hired into technical roles without the technical qualifications because hiring managers knew she could communicate under pressure and translate between engineers and the business.Ego Can Block Your Best OpportunityPride almost stopped her from taking a step down in title at cars.com, the one move that opened every director-level role that followed.EQ Is a Skill, Not a GiftShe learned to read rooms, manage tension, and stay observant growing up in an unpredictable home and didn’t realize until later that those were professional superpowers.The Machine Behind the LeaderLooking like the smartest person in the room has nothing to do with being the smartest, it’s about having the right people around you and knowing how to activate them.Never Disqualify Someone on Paper Credentials AloneThe Pizza Hut manager who couldn’t fill her Sears.com night shift on paper ended up being one of the best hires she ever made, because he was building Linux servers in his basement.TOPICS COVERED:• Starting in tech as a secretary with no technical background• Building a help desk and ITSM system from scratch in Lotus Notes• 15 years at Accenture – internal mobility and consulting work• Why soft skills open more doors than technical certifications in leadership• Overcoming ego to take a step down in title• Developing emotional intelligence through childhood adversity• What real mentorship looks like (Marine boss, Friday affirmations)• The polar vortex that triggered a move from Chicago to Las Vegas• Navigating organizational politics in unionized environments• Hiring the Pizza Hut manager who became a NOC team leader• Getting an AWS certification and MBA later in career• Why the people you least expect are watching your career• What the job market in 2025 actually looks like for experienced professionalsWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• IT professionals trying to move from technical roles into leadership• Anyone considering a career pivot later in life• New managers who are still too technically hands-on• Professionals navigating politically charged organizations• Job seekers trying to use soft skills to compete in technical interviews• Anyone who has let ego or pride block a good opportunityCONNECT WITH RHONDA LEMKE:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhondalemke/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you find some actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode I have with me Rhonda Lemke. Her and I were connected through Chelsey Bonilla who I’ve had here on the podcast before. Rhonda and I got on a couple calls. We hit it off great. I learned more about her background and was just excited for her to talk about all the things that she’s done, the things that she’s accomplished. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Rhonda. Rhonda Lemke: Thank you Manny. Thank you for having me here and this is quite the honor because usually I’m having people on my real estate podcast so it’s great to actually be the guest and share my information. Manuel Martinez: Yeah and I’m excited especially when we talked a little bit about the things you’ve accomplished throughout your career. It was very – I found it fascinating. So – and you shared a lot of insights with me that I know that if we go in a little bit greater detail, you know, it’s going to be very helpful for other people so that they can kind of go through and say, Oh I didn’t think about it that way or, Oh that’s how she you know, how she goes and handles challenges that come through and you know – things that a lot of times we may not think of in the moment but later on you might be – Oh wait a minute, this scenario is familiar. I remember somebody – and hopefully they’ll remember – Oh, I remember Rhonda had gone through this type of scenario, or had to make this type of decision and I can use some of what she did in the past to kind of help me. Rhonda Lemke: And I think that this – so today one of the reasons I chose today as my podcase date is because today is – one year ago today I was laid off from Caylent, and Caylent is an AWS partner and it was probably the best role of my entire career and it’s been one year of just complete pivoting and after almost three decades in technology I said well let me try real estate I’ve always wanted to sell real estate in in Las Vegas you know like selling real estate in an international tourist destination it is a blast and – but I will also say, the job market and the real estate market in 2025 have been soul crushing, and so I’d love to just kind of share my experience, because it’s not easy. It’s not easy, you know, you watch the LinkedIn feed, and you see everyone, I’m open to work, can anyone help and make a connection, so I just want to be out there, like I understand it and I can also help make connections. Manuel Martinez: Right, well that’s awesome. So if you don’t mind kind of start and tell us a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what you thought you were going to do for a career and then what actually got your career started. Rhonda Lemke: That is so interesting because – well first of all growing up in the 80s you know we had the best music and I’m sorry they’re remaking our music now and you know like Tracy Chapman and her Fast Car song like that was our that was our childhood and so I grew up in a town called Lansing Illinois and it’s a south suburb of Chicago. Blue collar community, kind of tough you know, I got beat up a little bit here and there. And so growing up when you say what did you want to do like you know what was your career, I didn’t know like honestly at 16 years old I was working at McDonald’s thinking oh maybe someday I’ll be manager and at the time my second dad he said well Rhonda if you would like to go to beauty school or secretarial school this is a thing so college wasn’t really like – my brother and I are first generation college graduates and both of us have our advanced degrees you know masters and whatnot. So growing up in that environment it really – what influenced me is when I got – so I said well I’m not going to go to secretarial school I was in the work program in high school and I typed faster than anyone – I got a job as a secretary at Arthur Anderson before Enron ever happened right so I was 18 years old commuting downtown Chicago. I had mentors, right, that taught me how to commute that said well Rhonda why aren’t you going to college? And you know my peers and so there was sort of that pressure from my peers to actually do something more than the Lansing, Illinois environment if that makes sense like Chicago you know commuting downtown Chicago you are exposed to to everything, right? So that’s kind of where I started. Manuel Martinez: And that’s interesting because again not knowing and having those mentors and having people that said hey you can do more than this right so a lot of times some of us may or may not have that so I know for me I went through and we’ve talked about this a li

Episode Inforrmation Show NotesWhat does it take to walk away from a 20-year career in hospitality and start over in tech at 38 with no degree, no certifications, and no hard skills? For Michael Steffen, it started with a jiu-jitsu training partner telling him he was miserable and handing him a Security+ study guide. He passed. He volunteered at DEF CON for three years. He’s now in targeted account sales in cybersecurity and he got there without ever applying for a single tech job.Michael spent two decades inside some of the biggest casino openings in Las Vegas history. The Wynn, Cromwell, Linq, and the Palms and opened a $7 billion resort in the Philippines while raising a daughter by FaceTime. He sat in boardrooms with the Fertitta brothers and learned what it means to know your numbers and say the hard thing when everyone else is hedging. When the Palms closed and left him without direction, he didn’t go back to hospitality. He went to TryHackMe instead.In this conversation, Michael breaks down the skills that actually got him into tech: how meeting people where they are became the throughline of his entire career, why organic relationships built over years beat transactional networking every time, and why volunteering at DEF CON opened every door a resume never could. He’s blunt about what the industry is missing. Tech has no shortage of people who can execute. It’s short on people who can actually talk to other people.TOPICS COVERED:• Growing up between Connecticut, California, and Las Vegas• Learning HTML and building online communities as a teen• 20 years in Las Vegas hospitality: restaurants, the Wynn, Caesars properties• First leadership role and the hard lessons of ownership• Three years opening a $7 billion casino resort in the Philippines• Raising a daughter by FaceTime• The Fertitta boardroom and what it demands• Why the Palms closing pushed him into tech• Getting Security+ and TryHackMe at 38• Volunteering at DEF CON with CTQ• The difference between organic relationships and transactional networking• Soft skills as a career advantage in tech sales• Parting advice: do the hard thing even when you can’t see the payoffWHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Anyone considering a career pivot into tech from a non-technical background• Hospitality, marketing, or sales professionals wondering if their skills transfer• Tech professionals who know they need to get better at the human side of the job• Career changers in their 30s or 40s who think they’ve missed their window• Anyone who has ever felt like the wrong person in the right roomCONNECT WITH MICHAEL STEFFEN:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myksteffen/ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday.Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome, everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez And this is another episode of Career Downloads, Where each episode I Basically hit the Refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today, I have with me Michael Steffen. He and I have met through a… mutual– I’m going to say colleague Through Dennis, who I’ve had on the show actually right before this one. I got to talk to Michael, learned a little bit more about his career into tech, and just fascinating everything that he has done beforehand. So I think there’s going to be a lot of transferable skills, a lot of kind of what he’s doing. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Michael. Michael Steffen: Hi, I’m Mike. Manuel Martinez: Appreciate you coming on and being open to telling your story, so times that we talked prior to this, prepping forward, there’s a lot of good information. And I was like, I want to dive deeper, but- Saving it for today. So to start off, if you can just tell us what your current role is and some of the responsibilities, and then we’ll work our way there. Michael Steffen: So I’m on a targeted account sales and a little bit of marketing support as well. I like to think of it as a good mix between understanding the tech side of it but not being a sales engineer, because those guys are… and gals are light years smarter than I ever will be on that side, but at the same time, be able to blend some of the soft skills too, and still know what I’m talking about, and be able to hang with CISOs or otherwise. Right. Manuel Martinez: So now, if you can kind of bring this back a little bit, and tell me a little bit about where you grew up, and eventually what you thought you were going to do, and kind of what led you to start in your career. Michael Steffen: So I grew– I was born in Ohio. I lived there for about six months, four days, and like 13 hours, according to my parents. We got out of there. Moved to Connecticut, was raised there for most of the time. Spent a lot of the time in the late 80s and early 90s, going to the city a lot starting to understand- by city being New York City. Boston as Well. Really getting to understand the East Coast and my formative years. Then we moved out to California when I was about 12. Lived there for two and a half years. Everybody always asked, hey, was your family in the military? It’s like, no, they were in health care. And health care, at that point, you bounce around just as much sometimes. So back then, my mom was– she was a VP at one of the health care companies. She had worked her way up from being left with nothing, when my dad left, to having a real job, and breaking the glass ceiling. So that, I think, set me on a trajectory to know there’s something always out there, and you can always pivot. And there’s still a chance, no matter how far down you think you are. We went to California. We stayed there for, again, I think two and a half years. Went back to Connecticut, culture shock in the beginning of high school, coming from Southern California at leaving in eighth grade and coming into ninth grade in a small town in Connecticut. Truly night and day. For six months out of the year it’s gray. You never see the sun. You have to dig your car out. Where before, it’s 65, 70 degrees all year round. The worst thing you have to deal with is a 40-degree morning. And I was this skate surf and snowboard guy. I don’t know what that is, but I’m here for it. So it’s like, hey, that was a lacrosse soccer football town. Night and day. And I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was the weird guy who didn’t grow up there. They all knew each other from kindergarten on, or their parents were relatively high up, or they all worked together. I was the odd man out. So I kind of realized too that, hey, if I’m going to be the odd man out, I might as well just kind of embrace that and see what’s out there for me. And I realized too, my stepdad at the time, he was big in the computers. I mean, the old big monitors. And every single year, we got a new box. And I was pumped about learning it. I gravitated towards that. So in high school, freshman year, it was M-I-R-C, and it was the Wares groups, and I was learning all that. I was big into gaming, not just in the video game stuff, but like tabletop stuff too, because again, I was a typical nerd, right? Not the sports guy. Not the sports that you could do 12 months out of the year, at least. So I found people online and I was like, hey, this is a play by post kind of thing. Later era BBSs kind of thing, play by post, whatever. I needed to learn how to develop HTML to create these pages to keep these stories moving. And I think really the formative thing for me was like, hey, go figure out how to do markup, do HTML, go get a book, HTML for dummies. I think everybody had one of those at one time. I think people still probably have it, I hope. And it kind of just opened my eye, I can create something, we’re just sitting at this machine that I’m gonna sit at anyway, because I can’t seem to socialize, and kind of create my own world. So it did. And that led into, I would say a passion of four years of that while still, you know, a lot of snowboarding there, did a bunch of competitions, skating every time, the weather wasn’t absolutely atrocious. And I gravitated to those cats. And I found a little friend group there, and I was really, really lucky. But they were also really accepting the fact that I was different than them. You know, they were the punk rock kids, and sure I was in and out a little bit, but I was mainly coming home, and I was just in front of my box, and I was enjoying the worlds that I was creating with my friends there too. So I had that kind of duality, and it kind of made me, I think, it really formulated, or formed a love of the opportunities online and in the tech space, without even really knowing what that was at the time, Manuel Martinez: you mentio...

Episode Information Show NotesHis father got tired of him playing video games. So he threw a book at him. Thirty years later, Dennis Moriarity is Chief Information Officer at Link Technologies in Las Vegas, and the book his dad threw “Learn C in 24 Hours” started everything. Dennis grew up in LA and wanted to be a police officer. He applied to the LA Sheriff’s Department at 18 and didn’t get in. He started a business during the dot-com era, watched it dry up when the bubble burst, then went back to college at 20. He was so far ahead of his classmates that his instructor asked him to teach some of the courses. When he graduated, he landed an internship at Bank of New York, was put on the mainframe team despite being a C and C++ developer, and spent the next 11 years rising from intern to lead developer to production support manager to VP. He was still writing code six years into management. Then his wife wanted out of upstate New York. They moved to Las Vegas. He took a six-month contract at Credit One, then applied for what he expected to be a programmer job at the City of North Las Vegas, just to step away from management. Once he got there, he saw problems everywhere. He told a director he was interested in the IT Director role. The city opened it. He applied and got it. What came next tested everything he thought he knew about leading. WHAT DENNIS MORIARITY DOES NOW:Dennis is Chief Information Officer at Link Technologies in Las Vegas. He helps organizations identify technology gaps and execute projects, and serves as internal CIO for Link advising on technologies to grow the business and better serve clients. KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:Your title doesn’t make you a leaderDennis spent years in management before saying it plainly: “Your position doesn’t make you a leader.” He talks about what leadership actually means — helping people get to a better version of their lives, asking what they want to be when they grow up even if they’re 50, and treating people the way you want to be treated. “I’m not here just to lead the city. I’m here to lead every individual underneath me to a better life.” Being overqualified is not the same as having nothing to learnAt Bank of New York, Dennis was put on the mainframe team even though his background was in C and C++. He thought it was a poor fit. It turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences of his career — not just for the COBOL and JCL, but for what the structured Wall Street environment taught him about planning, change management, and why institutional knowledge exists. Imposter syndrome is really about managing yourselfStepping into the director role at North Las Vegas, Dennis didn’t struggle with infrastructure or help desk or reporting lines. He struggled with himself. “That was the biggest challenge for me as the director. It wasn’t learning the infrastructure. It wasn’t learning help desk or managing any other people. It was managing myself. That was the hardest part.” Build trust by getting the right people in the roomDennis read “Speed of Trust” early in his leadership career and built his whole approach around it. He never asked vendors to come talk to him. He asked them to come talk to his team. “I’m just the pocketbook. That’s all I was. I was the final decision maker on if we were gonna spend the money or not. But my team was gonna tell me if it was gonna help us or not.” Stay quiet until you actually understand what they wantWhether in a client meeting or a team conversation, Dennis’s rule is the same: stay quiet. “The minute you open your mouth, all of your followers are gonna jump to whatever you just said.” He says when he does speak, it lands because Dennis doesn’t like to talk. TOPICS COVERED:• “If you wanna play these, then learn how to make them” the book that started a career• Writing his first email program and falling in love with programming• Wanted to be a police officer: applying to the LA Sheriff’s Department at 18• Going back to college and teaching courses at his instructor’s request• Bank of New York: overqualified intern on the mainframe team• Change management on Wall Street: 30 days of planning to change a comma• Career progression: intern to lead developer to VP in 11 years• Leadership through gaming clans, a World of Warcraft guild, and sports team captain• The production outage that cost millions and what ownership looked like• Moving to Vegas and stumbling into public sector leadership• Imposter syndrome as a first-time IT director• Speed of Trust and letting the team run vendor meetings• Personality color testing and how it changed team communication• Intention vs. perception: why you need to listen back, not just deliver• Why everyone should work in public sector at least once• “Be kind, you never know what someone’s going through” WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:• Programmers and developers considering a move into management• Anyone stepping into a leadership role for the first time and feeling out of place• Tech professionals in or considering public sector careers• Leaders who want to build more trust within their teams• People who built leadership skills through non-traditional paths like gaming, sports, or entrepreneurship• Anyone who has made a mistake at work and had to figure out how to own it CONNECT WITH DENNIS MORIARITY:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-moriarity-527a487a/ ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday. Connect with Career Downloads:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 Transcription Manuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about how they’ve managed their career over time. And today I have with me Dennis Moriarty. I’m excited because he and I have crossed paths back when I used to be a VMware SE. He’s moved up into leadership roles and just the way that he went through and just, like I tell people all the time, there’s no one way to get to a specific role and just the way that you go about getting there, the things that you learn along the way. So Dennis has a very interesting story. So I’m excited to kind of go through and dig in a little bit more into that. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Dennis. Dennis Moriarity: Hello everybody, Dennis Moriarty, Chief Information Officer with Link Technologies. Manuel Martinez: So like I mentioned to people before, so you’re CEO with Link Technologies. So if you don’t mind just kind of telling us a little bit about kind of your current role and responsibilities and then we’ll kind of start the story at the beginning and work our way to how you actually got to where you’re at now. Dennis Moriarity: Yeah, in my current capacity, really what we try to do is we’re gonna come into your place of business or whatever, and we’re gonna try to help you identify any gaps you may have or if you have a specific project in mind, how we can help you execute that project. I also help Link internally, right? With the technologies we’re choosing on how to grow our business, how to service our clients even better. Manuel Martinez: So now we’ll kind of start the beginning. So if you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what got you either interested in technology and if you didn’t start in technology, kind of what you thought you were gonna do and how you thought you were gonna start your career. Dennis Moriarity: All right. So from California, LA area, how did I get into technology? My father, my father was a mainframe programmer, assembly language, all that. He came home one day, he got tired of me playing video games and threw a book at me and said, “If you wanna play these, then learn how to make them.” And it was… Learn C in 24 hours or something like that. And I did, I read the book, I did everything and I fell in love with it. And I think the first program I wrote was a full blown email program that the book kind of helped you write. And from there, there was no turning back. I just loved, I fell in love with the process of programming and how to look at the world differently from a programmer’s lens and what I could affect through programming. Manuel Martinez: And if I remember the way that you’re, kind of like that exposure, like you mentioned, like programming and building something, was it the process of seeing something that you’re writing and basically in words and letters to seeing something that’s functional, like you said, the email program, like building it, testing it and saying like, “Oh, this is what I can do.” And if I build it this way, here’s how, this will affect the way it looks, the way it operates. But then also I’m sure there’s that challenge of, because I took a couple of programming classes and at the time I was like, this is n...

Episode Information Show Notes Bri Haralson wanted to be a chef. Sixteen years later she’s the Director of SLED at Cribl, one of the most connected people in the Southwest public sector tech community, and about to step into her next leadership role. Nobody mapped this out. That’s kind of the point. Bri grew up in Arizona, one of the rare native Arizonans. She started college for culinary studies at Northern Arizona University, transferred to Scottsdale Culinary, and then got a conversation that changed everything. Her restaurant manager pulled her aside and told her she wasn’t Mary Poppins — meaning she was confident, aggressive in a good way, and built for something beyond the kitchen. She didn’t fully understand it at the time. She went out, talked to people, and landed her first job as a sales training and hiring manager at a startup consulting company during the B2B SEO boom. She had never done it before. She acted as if. Within three years she had helped companies go from zero to seven figures and built sales floors from nothing to 75+ people. She started her career in leadership. From there she took a step back into an individual contributor BDR role — 120 cold calls a day — specifically so she could practice what she had been teaching. She was promoted to first-line leadership within two months. She went on to field sales, won Sales MVP, joined Gartner as one of their youngest field sales reps, and eventually found her home in SLED (state, local, and education) where she has been for 13 of her 16 years in the industry. She calls it her civic duty without civic pay. WHAT BRI HARALSON DOES NOW: Bri is the Director of SLED at Cribl, supporting state, local, and higher education clients in the West. She is also Secretary of SIM Nevada, Central VP of InfraGuard Arizona, and the founder of PubSec Tech — a community organization she built to connect public sector technology professionals across the Southwest without the vendor pitches. KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION: Do the work, but make it intentional Bri is direct: do the work is both the best and worst advice she has ever received. The problem is when people interpret it as heads-down isolation. “The work needs to be intentional and meaningful and you need to have influence over what you’re doing. It’s the extra time — the off the field time — that is really where the work is.” Sales is project management “Being an account executive is almost like being a project manager. Like a quarterback — you think he just throws the ball to the person that makes the touchdown. But it takes a lot. They’re running the plays, they’re building the trust with their team.” Bri runs her accounts like a business, coordinating engineers, services, and marketing toward the client’s outcome. Always Be Recruiting Forget ABC — Always Be Closing. Bri lives by ABR. “Always be recruiting. Recruiting for your next job, recruiting for your next hire. Every conversation that we have, every LinkedIn engagement — that is all building up for something in the future.” She believes if you build relationships intentionally over time, you never have to look for your next job. It finds you. Burnout is about misalignment, not volume Bri manages three board-level volunteer roles on top of a full-time director job and three kids. She doesn’t feel burned out. “The moment you start working for people who either don’t lift you up or where it feels exhausting — that’s the stuff I’m not going to do.” The burnout she has experienced in her career came from environments that weren’t aligned with her values, not from being busy. Lead without the title After not getting a leadership role at her previous company, Bri leaned into her volunteer organizations. Looking back: “That was the right decision. It really forced me to step up and look at the things that I was doing and grow as a leader myself. I don’t think I was ready.” She now coaches anyone who wants leadership experience to get into an external organization — because leading volunteers is harder than leading employees. There’s no chain of command. You actually have to lead. TOPICS COVERED: • Culinary school to tech sales: an unplanned career start • The restaurant manager who saw something she didn’t see yet • Starting a career in leadership before ever selling • 120 cold calls a day and the BDR experience • Field sales, Gartner, and the SLED market • Why public sector feels like civic duty • Sales as project management and the quarterback analogy • Intentional work vs. heads-down work • Decentralized command and learning to delegate • Burnout, overextension, and how she pulled back • Micromanaging vs. constant communication • Always Be Recruiting • Being a young woman in a male-dominated industry • Work-life balance vs. mission alignment • Introversion in sales and how she recharges • SIM Nevada, InfraGuard, and PubSec Tech • Not getting the leadership role and why it helped • Book recommendations: Extreme Ownership and Recoding America • Taking the risk and applying even when you don’t check every box WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR: • Tech sales professionals looking to move into leadership • Anyone in or considering the public sector space • People who feel burned out and don’t know why • Women in tech navigating male-dominated environments • Professionals who want to build leadership skills without a title • Anyone who has been passed over for a role and is figuring out the next move CONNECT WITH BRI HARALSON: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briharalson/ ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS: Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday. Connect with Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest. For today’s episode I have with me Bri Haralson. I’m excited because I’ve met her, like we followed each other on LinkedIn for a little while. Eventually we got to meet in person for the first time through a SIM event, which I’ve talked about quite a bit in the past about that organization. I was just very interested in a lot of the work that she’s done. She’s also very involved in, you know, organizations like SIM and seems like she’s very much willing to kind of help out in leadership roles within these different organizations to kind of, you know, help give back or, you know, uplift the community, whatever that might be. So it’s going to be a lot of good insights that I think we’re going to get out of this one. And with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Bri. Bri Haralson: Hi, thanks for having me. Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you spending the time to kind of come down here because I know that you’re not from Vegas. You’re based out of Arizona. Bri Haralson: Yeah, but I’m out here often. I feel like Vegas is my second home. Manuel Martinez: And that was… It took me a little while because you’re here all the time that I was like, “Oh, she’s here in Vegas.” And you’re like, when I asked you, can you come on? And you’re like, “Yeah, of course.” You’re like, “But I’m out of Arizona, so it might take me a little bit.” And I was like, “Really?” Bri Haralson: Yeah, a lot of people actually think that I’m local because I am out here so much. It actually started when I was a kid, my parents liked to gamble. And so I’d come out here a lot, like five times a year, and it really kind of became my second home. And then once I got into my career, I’ve always supported Nevada, specifically here in Las Vegas. So spending maybe two to four days out of a month here. So yeah. Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind telling us a little bit about what your current role is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities that you have as part of what it is that you do. Bri Haralson: So I’ve actually been in tech sales for 16 years, so a little bit different than an actual technical practitioner. So with that, I sell technical tools to state, local, and higher education clients. Again, I’ve been doing that for 16 years with 13 of those years dedicated solely to supporting the public sector. I am getting ready to transition into a leadership role, supporting a team of sellers that support the public sector here in the West. Manuel Martinez: That’s awesome. And I’m excited to kind of learn a little bit more when we get to that point, kind of what ultimately led you into kind of wanting to get into a leadership role and some of the things that you may or may have not done yet to kind of prepare for that. Now, you already kind of gave us a little bit that you come here to Vegas a lot, but if you won’t mind telling me where you kind of grew up and then eventually kind ...

Episode Information Show Note Ever wonder how someone goes from desktop support to protecting a professional sports team’s entire digital infrastructure? Andrew Ferrall’s career path shows that there’s no single route to landing your dream job in technology. As IT Security Architect for a professional sports organization, Andrew protects one of the most recognized franchises in professional sports from cyber threats. But his journey there involved building gaming computers in middle school, grinding through help desk tickets at Shuffle Master, taking on MSP work that stretched his abilities, and moving into systems administration before specializing in security. WHAT ANDREW DOES NOW: Andrew leads cybersecurity initiatives for a professional sports organization, handling daily defense operations, compliance requirements, and security evaluations for new technology rollouts. He collaborates with subject matter experts across networking, systems, and other IT specialties to keep the organization’s digital assets secure. KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION: Early Career Choices Matter More Than You Think Andrew’s time in desktop support at Shuffle Master taught him troubleshooting under pressure and how to work with different business departments. Those experiences still inform how he communicates complex security concepts to non-technical stakeholders today. Comfort Zones Kill Career Growth Several times in Andrew’s career, he chose challenging roles over comfortable ones. Moving to an MSP meant giving up job security, but the jack-of-all-trades experience built skills that became valuable later, even when the connection wasn’t obvious at the time. Your Career Story Lives on LinkedIn Andrew emphasizes building your professional narrative through LinkedIn. Every role, certification, and project tells recruiters what you’re capable of handling. That digital resume works for you even when you’re not actively job hunting. Imposter Syndrome Often Starts Earlier Than You Think Andrew shares how taking lower-level positions early on can create lasting doubts about your abilities. He learned that meeting even half the requirements in a job description is enough reason to apply. You’ll grow into the role. Learning Never Stops From help desk tickets to cybersecurity architecture, Andrew’s career demonstrates that continuous learning separates people who plateau from those who keep advancing. Early career is the perfect time to take roles specifically for their learning value, even if they don’t pay the most. CAREER PATH TIMELINE: – Middle school/high school: Building gaming computers, discovered technology passion – College: Studied business and information systems, networked actively – First job: Shuffle Master desktop support (learned IT fundamentals) – MSP work: Jack-of-all-trades IT (broadened skill set dramatically) – AGS: Systems Administrator (deepened technical expertise) – Professional Sports Organization: IT Security Architect (current role) TOPICS COVERED: – How building computers as a kid sparked lifelong tech interest – College networking that led to first job opportunity – Starting in desktop support and learning on the job – Moving from generalist IT roles into security specialization – Breaking into sports organization technology – Managing teams and working with subject matter experts – Building your career story through LinkedIn – When to leave comfortable roles for growth opportunities – Dealing with imposter syndrome at different career stages – Making career moves as long-term investments – Staying relevant through continuous learning WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR: – Anyone starting their technology career – IT professionals looking to move into security – People wondering if they should take a challenging role – Anyone dealing with imposter syndrome – Professionals building their LinkedIn presence – Career changers exploring technology roles CONNECT WITH ANDREW FERRALL: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-ferrall-675a4344/ ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS: Career Downloads explores technology careers through conversations with professionals who share their journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice. Hosted by Manuel Martinez, each episode exposes listeners to different technology roles and helps them manage their own careers more successfully. New episodes release every Tuesday. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background and their experience to try and gain any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. I have with me Andrew Farrell and this is a pretty interesting conversation. So back when I first started the podcast and was looking for guests, I really just started looking on LinkedIn to try and find people that were local to the area that had a career trajectory that looked like – you know there’s motion, maybe they had moved around, just something where I thought, you know, would bring about interesting conversation. We reached out – or sorry – we reached out to him and, you know, had a little bit of back and forth and eventually we were able to kind of get the scheduling worked out so I’m really excited. One of the benefits of again doing this is getting to know somebody local and kind of know more about them. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Andrew. Andrew Ferrall: Hey, thanks for having me Manuel. Really appreciate you. You’ve had a lot of awesome guests on your podcast and I just want to say you know it’s flattering that you’ve invited me to kind of be on here. You know I’ve learned a lot listening to some of the insights that your other guests have had and I hope I can bring the same for your audience today. Manuel Martinez: I think so and I appreciate you kind of coming on and you know you mentioned you know listening we did have you know conversations offline about some of these people and the other cool thing is I think one of the benefits for me, right – and again, I do this to try and help share information for others but then I get to meet local people and again through the conversations we’ve had, you know, we found common ground we were both you know Dodger fans, so that kind of helped connect us, and I think it really does a good job of, you know – through this medium and – help people understand that like we’re just people, right? Like yes we have a career yes we can learn from each other but at the same time like – I can call you up and like, “Oh, did you watch the game last night? Did you hear about this?”, you know so that’s part of the fun thing for me so again it’s not just – oh my gosh, it’s not just your title but who you are as a person that I think I really try to kind of pick my guess based on that. Andrew Ferrall: Yeah. Manuel Martinez: So if you can tell people who don’t know who you are kind of what your current role or position is and then kind of some of the responsibilities that, you know, you do – You know I don’t need your day-to-day stuff but just kind of a general sense of it. Andrew Ferrall: Yeah, so I am the IT Security Architect for the Las Vegas Raiders football team here in Las Vegas and I’m kind of the lead person when it comes to cyber security initiatives, whether it be day-to-day, you know, defense, compliance, evaluating new initiatives, making sure they’re secure and okay to roll out and really just making sure we’re playing our best defense on the “cyber gridiron” if you will. So yeah, really awesome, work with a great team. I rely on a lot of folks that are you know, more subject matter experts in different parts of IT, specifically networking. Or even certain system stuff that I may have not had much expertise on in my upbringing and it’s a really really cool job and it’s definitely one that I don’t take for granted. Manuel Martinez: So I’m excited now because you and I have talked in the past and I kind of know a little bit of kind of what you do now, but really understanding kind of where you start and kind of what got you there – so if you don’t mind telling me or telling us a little bit about you know kind of where you grew up what kind of sparked that interest in technology and you know eventually what you decided or at least what you thought your career was gonna start with, right? Because maybe you thought like, “Oh, I’m gonna be – I’m gonna be in IT from the get-go,” or you know, like, “Hey, I’m gonna be a firefighter,” and kind of pivoted that way. Andrew Ferrall: Yeah, so I actually am lucky enough that, you know, late middle school early on in high school I kind of found out I was into technology and potentially wanted to have some sort of career in it. Back in eighth grade I had a friend who was like really into building computers.He built computers for playing video games, I think Half-Life and Counter-Strike were the big games at the time, and you know like everyone at that time – this is like early 2000s late 90s – everyone’s getting their first computer in their home and you know AOL was the thing and – you get your disc in the mail and all that good stuff. So you know we had a family computer and I would tinker with it try to find ways to make it better. Sometimes I would break things and it would be at the time where I wasn’t supposed to be using the computer so I was like, “Alright, better fix this before I get in trouble.” right like double trouble you know breaking the computer and you know not being on there when you’re not supposed to. So I kind of just was starting to pick up like you know different skills with computers at that time and there was also...

Episode Information Show Notes Sometimes the career you’re meant for finds you through the most unexpected path. Art Green III, Senior IT Workforce Programs Instructor at Tech Impact, joins Career Downloads to share his journey from college athlete to tech instructor helping disadvantaged students launch IT careers. His story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and finding fulfillment through service. Guest Background: Art Green III spent his early years as a Division I athlete with dreams of professional sports. When a career-ending injury shattered that identity, he moved to Las Vegas searching for a fresh start. What began as a random job at a travel agency became the unexpected gateway to a 20+ year technology career. Today, Art leads Tech Impact’s IT Works programs in Las Vegas, teaching students from challenging backgrounds the technical and professional skills needed to launch successful IT careers. He also supports instructors across Tech Impact’s locations in Philadelphia, Delaware, and Nashville while developing cutting-edge curriculum including AI training programs. Episode Highlights: Identity Loss and Rebuilding Art opens up about the devastating experience of losing his athlete identity after a career-ending injury. Sports had been his entire life since childhood — there was no Plan B. The transition forced him to confront who he was beyond the field and find new purpose. Accidental Entry Into Tech Needing work after moving to Las Vegas, Art took a job as a travel agent. During downtime between calls, his natural curiosity led him to explore the computer systems. He discovered a backend coding interface and taught himself to completely redesign the booking process. That curiosity opened the door to his tech career. The Power of Being the Worst When Art started at Dell technical support, he was the worst performer out of 300 technicians. Rather than quitting, he committed to learning. This experience taught him that being the worst in the room is often the best position for growth — a lesson he now shares with his students. Finding Purpose Through Teaching Art’s first taste of teaching came when he trained new Dell hires while traveling the country. He discovered he loved teaching as much as troubleshooting. That seed planted years ago led him to his current role transforming lives through education. Nonprofit vs. For-Profit Education Working in for-profit education admissions left Art conflicted. He could spot students who weren’t ready for $80,000 programs but was told to enroll them anyway. The ethical struggle drove him to seek nonprofit education where mission aligned with impact. Tech Impact’s Mission Tech Impact’s mission, leveraging technology to create social impact, resonated deeply with Art. The organization serves dislocated, disenfranchised youth, many from difficult circumstances including homelessness. Watching students go from shelters to IT engineering roles at major resorts makes every day meaningful. Student Success Stories Art shares powerful examples of transformation: students who started the program homeless now working as IT engineers at Las Vegas resorts. The mentorship component brings industry professionals into students’ lives, creating relationships and opportunities that extend far beyond technical training. Authentic Recruiting Philosophy Art’s approach to student recruiting shifted from begging people to enroll to presenting genuine opportunities. He shares his background and knowledge without selling — creating space for students to make informed decisions about their futures. Key Takeaways: – Your painful experiences often prepare you to help others facing similar challenges – Being the worst performer is an opportunity for accelerated learning – Financial compensation alone won’t sustain you without meaningful work – Transferable skills from past roles apply in unexpected ways – Finding work that creates social impact changes everything About Tech Impact: Tech Impact is a national nonprofit that leverages technology to create social impact. Their IT Works programs provide free training, certification preparation, and job placement support to individuals from underserved communities. The program operates across multiple cities, combining technical training with soft skills development and professional mentorship. Connect with Art Green III: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-green-iii/ Continue the Conversation: Have questions about career transitions, teaching in tech, or nonprofit education? Connect with Manuel Martinez on LinkedIn or visit careerdownloads.com to share your thoughts and suggest future guests. Subscribe to Career Downloads New episodes release every Tuesday featuring technology professionals sharing real career journeys, hard-won lessons, and actionable advice to help you manage your career more successfully. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to share that with you so that you can gain valuable insights into how they manage their career and what worked or didn’t work for them so that you can can apply or not apply or not apply as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for this conversation. It’s with Art Green III and he and I have kind of crossed paths through mutual contacts, got to know a got to know a little bit more about his career and I think there’s a lot of valuable information that he’s going to be able to provide and also talk a little bit more about what he’s doing now. he’s doing now. So with that, I’ll introduce Art. Art Green: Hi Manny, thank you for having me here today. Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on and being open to kind of sharing your experiences and talking a little bit more about kind of what led you to where you’re at now and why. So I know you and I have talked about why this type of work really brings you fulfillment, right? A lot of times people get into the tech industry because they hear something that sounds cool or because of, you know, they hear high salaries but yes, it’s nice to make money and be able to pay your bills but a lot of times we try to find something outside of that that kind of fulfills us which is why I’m excited to learn more about, you know, what you’re doing. Art Green: Absolutely. Well Well again, thank you for having me. for having me. It’s It’s an honor to be here. As far as my current role, I’m the senior IT I’m the senior IT workforce programs instructor instructor with with Tech Impact, specifically their IT works programs which is kind of all-inclusive like a pathway to middle skills for up-and-coming IT minds, so to speak. speak. I know you’d I know you’d met with one of my former students Paola before so I’m not sure how much she told you about that. As far as what I As far as what I kind of do in the organization, obviously I lead the Las Vegas classes, those cohorts, but I also help with some of our other instructors who are some of them across the country. We have sites in Philadelphia, we have Delaware, we just brought on Nashville. So I really help to try to guide them to help them with their instructional delivery, come up with curriculum development as, you know, new things come about. Obviously AI is a big thing now so that’s kind of the project I’m working on now is putting together a new AI curriculum for our students. Outside of that, just really just just really just managing day-to-day around the office, around the office that kind of thing, and helping the students in their careers. Manuel Martinez: Just talking a little bit more about you know that clock, that cross-collaboration, you know you’re all working for the common good, but you know having different, you know, being spread across the U.S. and then also being able to kind of share experiences from each one of you because it’s not just you kind of helping guide working for the them, but I’m sure they’re also providing feedback, you know, and kind of working together and really developing something that is going to be beneficial for you know, in this case the end customer, which is really your students. Art Green: Absolutely, and I’m real big on that, you know, I’m pretty candid with my fellow instructors and my team and stuff and like, you know, if that slideshow I made is terrible, just tell me it’s terrible, you know, and I’ll go back to the drawing board. You know, I don’t want to force feed anything and I want it to be a collaborative effort because that’s the way that it’s going to end up being most successful because everyone has different tastes, different likings, and specifically with the students, different learning styles and things like that. So I’m always open, I love collaboration with everyone, even with the students, you know, I tell them all the time, like you know if that was bad just let me know, and that’s kind of one of the reasons why I’m working on the new AI curriculum because they they weren’t really feeling it so Manuel Martinez: So then now tell me about where you grew up and then eventually kind of where you thought your career was going to end up going and then, you know, how you eventually ended up moving into the tech space. Art Green: Okay, well I’m originally, well I was born in Kansas City, Missouri but moved to Texas when I was about five, so I was pretty much raised in Texas. Grew up there, it was really great experience, I miss home, I love Texas, but you know, for me as far as, you know, if you had asked me the ques...

Episode Information Show Notes Mike Green didn’t start out planning a career in technology. As a passionate art student in small-town New York, he faced a tough decision: pursue a field he loved with uncertain job security, or pivot to the growing computer industry. He chose computers, and 25+ years later, he’s never looked back. Today, Mike manages the Digital Services Division for Clark County, Nevada IT, leading four distinct teams that deliver enterprise platforms and applications. His journey from a 16-week network technician program to IT leadership wasn’t smooth. It was filled with layoffs, career pivots, and hard lessons about professional communication. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Mike shares the moment he realized art might not provide long-term security and decided to explore “a job in computers” (they didn’t call it IT yet). He got his start through a 16-week certification program that included a two-week unpaid internship and recruiting support. His first placement was at a telecom company that eventually became part of Verizon. One of the most memorable parts of Mike’s story is how he learned professional communication the hard way. His first few consulting deliverables at a shipping and transportation company were torn apart by his manager. He was using colloquial phrases, plain language, and missing the professional tone clients expected. The feedback stung, but it transformed how he wrote and communicated with leadership. Mike discusses the value of personality assessments, particularly DISC, which helped him understand not just his own working style but how to adapt to people with different personality traits. This skill became crucial when working with elected officials and diverse teams at Clark County. His commitment to giving back shines through his work with Tech Impact, a Las Vegas organization where he mentors students entering technology. His perspective: “If what I had then got me to where I am now, if I help them with this program now, they will be so much farther ahead of me by the time they’re my age.” KEY TAKEAWAYS: Career transitions require honest assessment of long-term security vs. passion Changing jobs every 3 years built diverse technical experience across systems administration, networking, and leadership Professional communication skills separate good technicians from great leaders Personality assessments (like DISC) provide valuable insight for working with diverse teams Keep your resume updated and practice interviewing regularly, even when you’re not looking for a job Community involvement and mentorship create lasting impact beyond your own career Thinking two steps ahead helps you spot opportunities before they pass Adaptability doesn’t mean losing your authentic self — it means understanding how to work effectively with different people Service to others provides meaning and helps you work through your own challenges ABOUT MIKE GREEN: Mike Green is the IT Manager for Clark County, Nevada, where he oversees the Digital Services Division with four teams focused on enterprise platforms and applications. Since starting in IT in 1998, Mike has built expertise across networking, systems administration, and IT leadership. His career has included roles in telecommunications, education, shipping and transportation, and public sector technology. Mike is actively involved in the Society of Information Managers (SIM) and serves as a mentor for Tech Impact, helping shape the next generation of technology professionals in Las Vegas. CONNECT WITH CAREER DOWNLOADS: New episodes release every Tuesday. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to learn from technology professionals sharing their career journeys. The good, the bad, and the lessons learned along the way. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome, everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help you gain some actionable advice as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode, I have with me Mike Green. Him and I met at a couple of networking events through SIM, which I’ve covered before in the past. That’s the Society of Information Managers. We got to talking about just some of the video production and have since collaborated on a number of different projects. Got to know a little bit more about his career, a little bit more about him as well. I’m excited to share a lot of that information with you. With that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Mike. Mike Green: Hi. Manuel Martinez: Appreciate you coming on and similar to what I do for all the guests, if you don’t mind telling me about what your current role is and some of the roles and responsibilities. Mike Green: Sure. My current role is IT manager for Clark County, Nevada IT. I am a manager over the Digital Services Division, which is… our primary focuses, enterprise platforms and applications. I have four teams underneath me and they do very different things, but we all try to work very cohesively together as a larger group. That’s what I do by day. Manuel Martinez: I know that you’re also involved in a lot of like SIM and Tech Impact, a number of organizations outside of work. That’s part of the conversation. We’ll get to that and understand how you got into that and why you decided to be involved in these organizations to the level that you are, you’re not just a member or somebody who shows up like you’re actively involved in these organizations. To get started now, tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what led you to get your interest in technology and eventually start your career. I don’t know if you were one of those that right away got into tech or if there’s a lot of twists and turns along the way. Mike Green: There’s always twists and turns along the way. I grew up in a small rural town in New York, Palmyra, New York. It’s close to Rochester so that when people ask me that I say, “Oh, I’m from Rochester, New York” which is like a Western area. people will sometimes call it upstate. If you’re talking about the nuances of New York, upstate’s like the Adirondacks and we call it Western New York, which is like your Rochester and Buffalo area. My graduating class was barely over 100. You knew everybody in your class. It was just like a very, I would say small town environment. Then I was originally a big art student, art person. That was going to be my career of choice. I was very much into drawing. I loved painting with acrylics. Sculpture really was something I enjoyed, both subtractive and additive sculpture. I really enjoyed that and I still do. I came to a crossroads towards the end of high school. Something else that I actually really enjoyed was video games. I played Nintendo, I played Sega Genesis. I really liked computer games and things like that. As I’m nearing the end of high school, I’m thinking about what’s my career path going to look like if I continue down the art. I’m like, “Well, it’s probably only like a one or two percent of the people out there that do art that are really successful that can make a good living at it and everybody else is like an art professor and art teacher.” That’s not to discount it, but I felt like, “Is that going to give me job security long-term?” For me, I didn’t see that for me. The other avenue was like, we didn’t call it IT back then. We just called it, the career counselor’s like, “You should look at it for a job in computers.” That’s what it was. I was like, “Okay, you’re right. I think I could do that.” I said, “If I could make a decent living at computers, I saw that only growing.” This is like the mid-90s at that point. Then I could make a decent living and I could do art on the side if I really wanted to. I never looked back and I don’t regret that decision. I was 18 years old, about a year out of high school. I wanted to just dive into a career in computers. I didn’t go to college until later in life, so I didn’t have a college degree. I was like, “How am I going to do this?” Then a friend of mine is like, “I’m going to this program. It’s a 16-week course.” At the end, you get a certification for a network technician. I was like, “That sounds really cool. Obviously, he’s my friend too.” We took the class together and the same cohort or group. They had a two-week internship at the end. It was unpaid, but it got you some experience. They partnered with a recruiting company to help place you at the end. I got placed at a telecom company. Eventually it became part of what’s known as Verizon, but at that point it was still early in the when local companies had their own phone business. That’s how it started. I just got work experience as I went along and layoffs happened. I looked back, so I’ve been doing IT since 1998. On average, I changed jobs every three years. I looked back and I’m like, some obviously were longer than others, but I was just like, “Wow, in IT, that was something I got used to.” It was always keeping my resume updated, always making sure that I could interview well, knowing how to write a good cover letter, knowing how to interact and speak with people. I learned that from my parents as well. My mom was always like, “Always keep your resume updated,” kind of thing. That really resonated with me. I gleaned a lot of good wisdom from her on those subjects. Manuel Martinez: With regards to similar to you, looking back, I think we were about the same. I averaged about three years, somewhere longer, somewhere shorter. Before we get into specifics, is the moving around, looking back now, what do you think the reason … You mentioned that one, it w...

Episode Information Show Notes The Week That Changed Everything Ray Freeman’s tech career includes a chapter most people would rather forget. After the 2008 financial crisis, Ray lost his job, his wife lost hers, and their six-bedroom Houston house became a financial prison. Eventually, Ray spent a week sleeping in his car while working contract IT jobs. Today, Ray is President and Chief Strategy Officer of RTS Premier Solutions, serving government agencies with AI and cybersecurity solutions. His story isn’t about avoiding failure, it’s about what happens when you refuse to stay down. What Makes This Episode Different Ray doesn’t tell the sanitized version of his career. He shares the real story: blowing through money faster than he made it, losing everything in five days, and the humbling experience of living out of his car with a George Foreman grill and a rice cooker from Goodwill. But he also shares how those experiences built the resilience, communication skills, and leadership mindset that drive his success today. You’ll hear about getting fired from AT&T for challenging leadership and then being called back by the CTO who vindicated him completely. Key Takeaways On Building Confidence: Ray discovered he was smart by accident. After struggling in traditional school, he took Microsoft certification exams on a whim and scored perfect. That moment changed everything. He learned that finding the right way to learn matters more than fitting into someone else’s system. On Resilience: When Ray lost everything, he didn’t call for help. He bought a styrofoam cooler, found a Dollar General, and figured out how to survive. One week later, he had his first paycheck and could rent an apartment. The experience taught him that survival builds character. On Leadership: Ray got fired from AT&T for going over his manager’s head to warn about a critical infrastructure problem. Weeks later, the CTO called him back, saw the problem immediately, and gave Ray’s company a contract. That experience taught Ray to speak truth to power, no matter the personal cost. On Communication: Ray studied DISC and Emergenetics, psychometric assessments that taught him to recognize how people think and communicate. He learned to modify his tone, pace, posture, and words based on his audience. This skill became the foundation for his ability to simplify complex technical problems for executives. On Goal Setting: When Ray was sleeping in his car, he broke survival into daily goals. Make it to Monday. Get through the week. Get the first paycheck. Find an apartment. This approach of breaking massive goals into manageable chunks became a career skill that serves him to this day. On Business Ownership: Ray used to think owning a business meant doing all the work himself. Learning that business ownership means assembling people, processes, and tools not doing everything personally, transformed how he thinks about scaling and creating opportunities for others. About Ray Freeman Ray Freeman is President and CSO of RTS Premier Solutions and co-owner of Win-Win Operations. With over 20 years in technology and a background that includes music production with major artists, Ray brings a unique perspective to tech leadership. His journey from sleeping in his car to leading government technology contracts proves that setbacks don’t define your career, your response to them does. Connect with Ray on LinkedIn or learn more about RTS Premier Solutions. Listen & Subscribe Career Downloads releases new episodes every week. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss a conversation. Visit careerdownloads.com for more episodes and resources. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode I have with me Ray Freeman. He and I have met at a couple different networking events. We talked a little bit about his career. He’s got some very interesting stories and even inspiring, just understanding the different things that people go through. This one’s gonna be really fun for me and hopefully, you know – like I mentioned, inspirational for everybody else. Ray is very open and he’s gonna tell us about some of the struggles and everybody always likes to kind of talk about the successes but he’s very interested in talking about some of the challenges that happened along the way so that you can go ahead and hopefully relate to them or like I mentioned get a little bit of inspiration. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Ray. Ray Freeman: Thanks for having me. Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on. It’s been interesting and fun talking to you, getting to know a little bit more about not only what you’re doing now but just what it took to get there. Ray Freeman: Yes, yes. Manuel Martinez: And if you don’t mind just so that people get in a sense of who Ray is now, tell me kind of what your current role is and some of the responsibilities of what it is that you do for this role. Ray Freeman: Sure, sure. So my name is D. Ray Freeman. D is for Donald but I just go by my middle name by Ray Freeman. I’m originally from Texas but I’ve been here in Las Vegas for about five years and I’m a co-owner of RTS Premier Solutions. We do all kind of IT work and you know AI and cyber security around the public sector. I’m also co-owner of a company out of Atlanta Georgia called Win-Win Operations. My partner Shayna Benjamin is there in Atlanta and together. We have about 30 OEM partners that we we work with and about 15 teaming partnerships with other small and medium-sized businesses and we just bring together some of the best technology to the public sector. We serve federal government and state and local and education as well Manuel Martinez: Awesome. I’m excited as part of the conversation to learn a little bit more of kind of what brought you to want to serve the public sector, right? Ray Freeman: Yes, you know when when I first met my my business partner she actually reached out to me on LinkedIn. I was serving as a career advisor and business advisor and she found me on LinkedIn and was like hey I’ve won these government contracts and I’m not sure I know exactly what to do but I’ve won them and I’m starting to service them and I’m like well I’ve started this company and I have a 20-year background in technology and I’m actually going to some of these networking and meetups and I’m not sure exactly what I’m gonna do but I’m making a lot of connections in the public sector and we’re like well why don’t we try to work together? So we decided to partner up and become partners in each other’s business and figure out you how can we work together to serve not only the market that she had already but then the network that I was starting to build here in in Las Vegas and so we ended up closing more contracts and building more together and it’s just been a great partnership and you know so she really got me into a public sector environment that was already established. I just helped to grow it. Manuel Martinez: Got it, okay. So now, as we kind of lead to what you’re doing now, tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what got your career started because I know that you didn’t necessarily, I mean there’s some technology in there but you know we talked about kind of that fork in the road where you kind of had a couple decisions so you know just tell us a little bit about that. Ray Freeman: Sure, sure so I grew up in Fort Worth Texas you know just outside of Dallas there and you know as a little kid I used to always say I’m gonna go to night school and I’m gonna learn technology and I’m gonna do some kind of job working during the day. I was probably six years old and I was saying that but you know as I grew up of course I got into music more and started playing piano and trumpet but eventually I started making just music just beats for people you know R&B hip-hop music that was just going out and people were getting my songs and starting to use them in their own productions and so I was like forget about this tech stuff I’m gonna be a music producer man that’s where I’m going and I thought that’s where I was gonna be and actually when I was in college I was on a music scholarship in Weatherford College in West Texas I was playing trumpet and a really good jazz band there and some guys I had made a track for, they got signed to a record label in Houston their manager came and he gave me a wad of cash and said “Hey, we want to buy this song from you,” and I was like, “Where’s the pen?” – No lawyer no nothing I signed over and you know gave him that and I immediately thought I’m rich you know I’ve got some money I dropped all my classes left school went and got an apartment in Arlington and blew through that cash in about a month really smart for a 19 year old but I started working during the day I was working on the back of a you know one of those recycling trucks where you buy aluminum cans and stuff like old stinky trucks buying basically garbage from other people I was doing that and I had a little bit of little bit of cash left and I enrolled in a computer class at night so it’s kind of like what my six-year-old self said I would be doing but it was just like a plus stuff just weren’t learning to work on hardware things like that but from from there I just kind of had a knack for computers and technology and I couldn’t really afford to just buy a computer

Episode Information Show Notes What happens when a drummer who played for 10,000 people realizes the music business won’t pay the bills? Rebekah Panepinto shares her unconventional journey from Nashville musician to successful Account Executive, proving that your next career move might come from the least expected place. This conversation goes deep on how relationships trump resumes, why being visible matters more than being perfect, and how asking better questions opens doors you didn’t know existed. Guest BackgroundRebekah Panepinto is an Account Executive and podcast host who has built her sales career by prioritizing authentic relationships over transactions. After pursuing music as a drummer for Grammy-nominated artists, she pivoted to tech sales where she discovered her talent for building partnerships. Her journey from healthcare IT to global software consulting shows how following trusted relationships creates better outcomes than chasing job titles. Episode HighlightsThe Pivot MomentRebekah earned just $150 playing drums for 10,000 people while getting paid more per day as a nanny. That moment at 21 forced her to Google “best jobs in Nashville” and discover healthcare IT—launching an unexpected career path. Zero to Sales HeroWithout any sales experience, Rebekah got recruited by a bandmate who saw intangibles in her that she didn’t see herself. He taught her the fundamentals while she brought natural relationship-building skills that can’t be taught. Female Drummer AdvantageBeing a female drummer in a male-dominated music industry prepared Rebekah for tech sales in ways she never expected. It taught her to believe she could do anything and to never back down from male-dominated spaces. The Everyone’s-a-Prospect TrapEarly in her sales career, Rebekah believed everyone on every flight and elevator was a potential customer. Learning to properly qualify prospects saved companies from bleeding money on bad-fit customers. Podcasting Beats NetworkingTraditional networking events create forgettable exchanges. Podcasting builds authentic relationships where people share vulnerable moments and create lasting connections. Continuous Learning PhilosophyGrowing up homeschooled taught Rebekah how to love learning as a lifelong journey. Now she dedicates an hour every morning to podcasts and audiobooks, absorbing insights from business leaders while working out. Key Takeaways1. Follow relationships, not job descriptions. Every one of Rebekah’s career moves came through trusted connections2. Personal branding is non-negotiable. Being visible and consistent makes you memorable when opportunities arise3. Quality relationships beat transactional wins. Nobody should dread your outreach because you only call for the check4. Learn from everything. Even finance podcasts teach you about newsletter strategies and content creation5. Going all-in creates mastery. Whether it’s scuba diving or sales, full commitment accelerates learning Resources Mentioned– Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory Podcast– Ramit Sethi’s Money for Couples– Antifragile by Nassim Taleb Listen to the full episode to hear how Rebekah builds multi-channel touchpoints with prospects, why she’d choose relationship quality over quota-hitting, and what she learned from being capped at her first sales job. Released: January 13, 2026 Subscribe to Career Downloads for weekly conversations with tech professionals sharing their career journeys. TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me Rebecca Panepinto, and she is she’s an account executive, and she does a lot of, she also has her own podcast, she’s a drummer, so there’s a lot of information there that I think, it’s not just focused just on her career, but a lot of the skill sets that she has developed outside. Talked about it in a couple other episodes, some of those transferable skills. So I think this is gonna be a really good one to kind of, for those people who are like, well, I don’t wanna be just career oriented, I think she gives us a good mix of kind of both realms. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Rebekah. Rebeka: Yes, thanks for having me. Manuel Martinez: I’m glad you were able to kind of make it, being from New York, right? Rebekah Panepinto: Yeah, it’s like, hey, I’m gonna be in Vegas, let’s do a show. Manuel Martinez: That’s awesome. Rebekah Panepinto: Excited, I’ll have you on the show here soon too, but it will be virtual, not in person, not as exciting. It’ll be fun. Yeah, we met through just LinkedIn. I saw what you were doing with your show, and I said, hey, I wanna know you, and understand how you’re doing this, the impact you’re making, and learn a little bit more. So here we are now. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, I like it. And I’m glad you did reach out, because again, I saw that you had a podcast, and kind of what you were doing, so it wasn’t so much career focused, but more around digital transformation, and the different people that you have on. So I have watched a couple of those episodes, and I got some good insights from just, I like hearing how different people think, and then also, I think you do a really good job of kind of asking those good questions, right? And then you got a lot more episodes than I do, but that’s a skill that is helpful not only here, but just in general, just being able to ask better questions, you get better answers. Rebekah Panepinto: Yeah, and just building relationships. There’s something about this that builds a relationship that’s truly authentic, and almost experiential, and like a moment that is shared together, versus just like bumping each other and networking event, you know? And like you quickly forget somebody’s name, or where they’re from. But the way you can build a relationship through podcasting is just a game changer, especially when you’re a salesperson. I’ve always tried to be a salesperson who is not seen as just somebody coming after the next sale, but instead more of a trusted advisor and somebody who wants to build relationships for the long haul, and have a repeat customer when the CIO goes to another company, et cetera. And so by having a conversation, even though typically mine are virtual, you’re able to open really cool doors and get people in a really good place where they feel comfortable to share their career, their advice, their principles, whatever it may be, to be able to be really vulnerable, so. Manuel Martinez: So can you tell me a little bit more about kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got your career started? You know, what kind of go from there? Rebekah Panepinto: Oh, it’s been an adventure. So I was actually one of those weird homeschool kids, was born in Phoenix, and started college at 16. And so that had me finishing my undergrad at 19, which is a really weird stage in life to be basically like, what do you wanna do for the rest of your life? Because you don’t have a clue at 19. But that was the place I was in. I was like, well, I guess I’ll just get a business degree. And back in the back of my head, as you mentioned earlier, my drumming, is I wanted to be a big drum star. So Nashville was calling my name. So I took off halfway across the country, actually be a live in nanny to start. It got me to Nashville, and I was able to finish my undergrad online while working in the music business on the side, and actually providing for myself through being a nanny, because that’s a pretty good gig in the Nashville area, if you have the right family. And so big drum star was the dream at first. I spent two years, so age 19 to 21, going pretty hard after music. Until 21, I played a show for 10,000 people, and I got paid $150, and that was it. I was like, music business is not gonna happen for me. I love it, great opportunity. I remember I was signing autographs till 2 a.m. that night, just like this is it, and then had to go get in the car, drive through the night to wake up a nanny the next day to get paid more per day as a nanny than that gig even paid. And the craziest part, even that gig, the people I was playing with had paid for the spot, and it was just like, it was insane to see the reality of this is not gonna be financially feasible at all, especially as just the drummer. But hey, I got to feel like a rock star, I got to taste it, and it was fun. Artist I’d played for was Grammy nominated, and it opened some cool doors. It was really fun. I still have some YouTube videos out there somewhere. But I woke up that next day, here 21, just finished my undergrad. I was like, I gotta do something else. This is not it, and I’m not gonna be a nanny for the rest of my life. And so I kid you not, I Googled best jobs in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was healthcare IT. I was like, okay, I think that’s an answer. HCA, number one employer in Nashville, I was like, I guess I should go work for HCA, like the overconfident 21 year old I was. And I applied for a paid internship at HCA, and I got it, I was shocked. Well, here’s the funniest part of it all. The guy who hired me, his son was a drummer. He and his son had been doing drum covers in their little home studio they have similar to yours, and had offered through the interview process even, I wasn’t even hired yet, if I ever wanted to come record, like he had a studio, his son wasn’t really doing it much anymore, and he loved it, like help...

Episode Information Show Notes Breaking into a major tech company requires more than submitting applications online. Chelsey Bonilla shares how strategic networking, intentional preparation, and genuine curiosity helped her land an account executive role at Gartner, despite not having a traditional technical background. Guest Background:Chelsey Bonilla is an Account Executive at Gartner, one of the world’s leading research and advisory companies. A Las Vegas native and UNLV double alum, she built her career through operations, IT staffing, startup experience, and project management before finding her current role. She’s an active member of SIM (Society of Information Management) Las Vegas, where she volunteers and builds relationships within the tech community. Episode Highlights: Non-Traditional Path to ITChelsey’s career didn’t follow the expected route. Starting in operations and moving through various roles, she found herself drawn to IT despite lacking technical credentials. Her willingness to ask “I don’t understand” became a strength rather than a weakness. Strategic Networking That WorksWhen Chelsey became obsessed with working at Gartner, she didn’t just apply online. She researched everyone attending a SIM networking event, showed up early, and made genuine connections. That preparation led to a phone call about an opportunity that wasn’t even posted yet. The Power of PreparationBefore networking events, Chelsey researches attendees on LinkedIn, follows them strategically, and comes prepared with questions. She calls it “cyber stalking”—and it works. Surviving Seven Rounds of InterviewsLarge organizations have rigorous interview processes for good reason. Chelsey shares what it took to get through seven interviews at Gartner and why each round reinforced that she was on the right path. Key Takeaways: Ask questions freely, even when you don’t have technical knowledge Prepare intentionally for every networking opportunity Build genuine relationships within professional organizations Research people before you meet them Trust the rigorous interview processes at companies you admire Give recruiters the information they need to advocate for you Volunteer and give back to your professional community Connect with Chelsey Bonilla:https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseybonilla/ Listen to Career Downloads:Available on all major podcast platforms TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode because I have with me Chelsey Bonilla and her and I have, over the last, probably close to a year now, have developed a both professional and personal relationship, just kind of getting to know each other. And ike I’ve mentioned before, there’s different areas of technology. So she didn’t feel that she works in technology, but she really does. So again, I just kind of want to help, I hope that her story kind of helps dispel some of those myths. And we get to learn a little bit more of how she’s navigated it, and hopefully find some things that will be helpful for you. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Chelsea. Chelsey Bonilla: Thank you, Manny. I appreciate all the time and consideration and overthinking that you’ve allowed me to have over the last year. Manuel Martinez: And I appreciate that it kind of, it took time because you’re not the only person that, it takes a little bit to be like, “Well, wait a minute, why me? Why my story?” it’s not something that you do all the time, right? I don’t see you on podcasts all the time or kind of speaking out publicly. So I think this is good because I’ve had a couple of guests like that. And it it helps other people see like, “Okay, it’s not just me.” Chelsey Bonilla: Right, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we met for coffee, you emailed me questions, we had in-person conversations. So on the scale of overthinking, I think I’m on the high end. So I appreciate you indulging me throughout the year. Manuel Martinez: No problem. So if you don’t mind as we get started, if you just kind of tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what led to you starting your career. Chelsey Bonilla: Absolutely, so I love the story of where I grew up because I actually grew up in Las Vegas. So born and raised never left. And I like to say that because growing up in Vegas, born and raised here, not very far from where we are right now, I’ve kind of seen the growth of the city, seen the change of the environment, but I’m also a double alum from UNLV. And I knew coming out of high school that I wanted to go to UNLV. And when I went back to get my MBA, I knew UNLV was where I wanted to go. And that never left, not to say if someone leaves there’s anything wrong with that, but a lot of people that I grew up with left to UNR, left out of state. And I just, I truly have an affinity for Nevada. And I knew UNLV was my school. So that’s kind of my education. And then starting in my professional career, I started working at the young age of 15, which is crazy to say. So I started working at 15. I worked for a small mom and pop shop here in Vegas, a school uniform company. And I was the right hand to the CEO. So I would do everything from payroll to training, to hiring, to operations, to, I was the controller. I would do bookkeeping. So it was this amazing experience to get exposure to business. 15 to 17, I was basically supporting and helping from a business perspective. So then when I started at UNLV, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? I naturally gravitated towards a business degree. So I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business. And it was amazing because I would take these concepts from class, I would come back to the business and say, “Hey, what if we tried this? What if we created a social media account? What if we did marketing campaigns? What if we changed the way our strategy looked?” So it was this amazing playground where the CEO would let me come back with concepts and kind of grow those organically within the business. And then when I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, working through the entirety of my bachelor’s degree, going back to school, I knew I wanted to get my MBA. So I went through the executive MBA program at UNLV, which was great because it was unique to the standard MBA tract because I was with a cohort. So I was with 18 other individuals who are still friends to this day, seven years after graduation. And it was just such an eyeopening experience that really led to my journey and the evolution of my professional career. Manuel Martinez: What is it about that CEO? And do you think it was just them kind of seeing you grow up and knowing that you’re pursuing this business degree, that they gave you the ability to kind of implement a lot of these changes that you wanted to go through because sometimes there’s business owners or just maybe the businesses, it’s so established that they’re like, “No, we’re not gonna do that.” Or, “Hey, that’s great in theory or in a classroom that would never work in an actual business setting.” So is it you communicating, not just like, “Hey, we should do this,” because I’m sure you weren’t just like, “Let’s implement this.” And they were like, “Sure, let’s do it.” You had to kind of build a business case. So what was that kind of interaction like? Chelsey Bonilla: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I love the term business case because I think as IT professionals, we use that all the time. And thinking back 15 years ago, I didn’t even know I was building a business case to why should we do this? So there was a lot of trust that the CEO had in me I think because I was with the business for so long. So I ended up working there for 10 plus years. And just over that time, it allowed me to build that trust with her. So I could come and I could say, “Here’s an idea. Here’s what I’d like to implement.” She was great at building the business, but she didn’t have the college education. So me coming with, “Hey, this is what I’m learning at school. I don’t know if it’ll work, but maybe we could try it.” And there was a lot of freedom for me to kind of try different things and work with the team and say, “Hey, let’s try this. Let’s see if it works.” So like building employee manuals was something that I had so much fun with. And it was the first time the organization ever had an employee manual. So it was like that compliance and that documentation was things that I was learning that I could bring back and then were valuable to the business. And she saw the value as I would execute on those things. Manuel Martinez: And my guess is though, that not every idea was a success. Chelsey Bonilla: Absolutely. Manuel Martinez: And when it didn’t, how did you Did you take it personal or kind of, it sounds like you had a good relationship so that when it didn’t work, how do you determine, “Hey, this isn’t working as opposed to, we just need to keep trying harder.” Chelsey Bonilla: I’m definitely the beat a dead horse. Like there’s nothing I can’t try hard enough to accomplish. But I think the older I’ve gotten, the better I’m at at taking constructive criticism. But there were multiple times where I was like, “Well, maybe we just tweak it slightly, or maybe we try it differently.” And I...

Episode Information Show Notes What happens when you stop planning your career and start asking better questions? Ruben Sarino didn’t set out to co-found an AI security company. The path from military kid bouncing between six countries to RiskHorizon AI co-founder included selling car parts, packaging California honey, working Apple retail, cold calling at CrowdStrike, and several stops in between. None of it was planned. All of it mattered. What You’ll Learn Growing up in Japan showed Ruben what technology could do when it actually worked. Tapping cards to ride trains and buy things felt seamless. Visiting developing countries showed him the same problems without the same solutions. That contrast planted a seed: technology should solve real problems for real people. But Ruben didn’t study computer science. He studied business. His first exposure to entrepreneurship came through a car parts manufacturer where he learned the difference between pushing products and solving problems. Then came a honey business he fell into by chance, where terrible packaging met great product. Apple retail taught him how great companies operate. CrowdStrike as an SDR gave him front-row seats to hypergrowth and mentors who showed him what came next. Each stop built skills that transferred to the next one. Key Insights On Getting Started: “If you know too much, you will never start.” Ruben talks about the danger of over-researching and why ignorance sometimes helps you take the first step. On Career Direction: His annual self-check-in doesn’t ask “what do I want to do?” It asks “how do I want to feel next year?” From there, he works backward to figure out what needs to change. On Problem-Solving: Whether it’s car parts, cybersecurity, or AI, Ruben looks for the underlying problem before building solutions. Not everything needs AI. Some things just need better execution. On Mentorship: The CrowdStrike account executives who took time to show him what happened after the handoff shaped his trajectory. He didn’t formally ask them to be mentors – he asked good questions and stayed curious. On Risk: Being comfortable with change helps, but it’s not required. What matters is believing you can course correct if things don’t work out the way you planned. About Ruben Sarino Ruben Sarino is co-founder of RiskHorizon AI. His career spans car parts manufacturing, honey business, Apple retail, cybersecurity sales at CrowdStrike, workforce intelligence startups, and healthcare technology. He’s comfortable with change, believes in transferable skills, and thinks most people overthink their next move. Connect with Ruben on LinkedIn: Subscribe to Career Downloads New episodes drop every week featuring tech leaders, CIOs, and professionals sharing their career journeys and the lessons they learned along the way. Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest, to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me Ruben Sarino, and him and I met at a networking event. We got to talking, just learning about kind of what he’s doing. He was asking me what I was doing. You know, we connected on LinkedIn, got to know each other, our backgrounds. And I think he has a lot to offer, and there should be a lot of good stories, a lot of good information that people can use, you know, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the field for a while, you know, and are looking to make a change, either to a different area or, you know, maybe even promotion-wise. So with that, I’ll introduce Ruben. Ruben Sarino: Hey, how are you? Manuel Martinez: Good, appreciate you coming on and being willing to share your experiences and your story. Ruben Sarino: Thanks for having me. Manuel Martinez: Of course, if you don’t mind, what I tell all the guests is if you want to start off and just tell me a little bit more about you and kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you kind of interested in technology. Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s a long story. So I think this is the perfect venue for it, right? So let’s see, where I grew up. So my dad was in the military. I was born here in Las Vegas, and right at five years old, moved to about six countries, including Japan, England, and got to travel around, all around Europe, and ended up back in the Philippines for a little bit. Ended up in college in California, went to school in the Bay Area, San Jose State, and then have since moved all around the US as well. So now I’m back in Las Vegas, and that’s where we met. Manuel Martinez: And what is it that kind of got you interested in technology, doing all that? Because I know that you spend a little bit of time in Japan, the Philippines, and I’m sure living in different countries also gives you a different perspective on not only how different countries, not just culture-wise, but the things that they value, don’t value, and like in Japan, like technology’s a big thing. So I’m assuming that had some influence, possibly on what you ended up doing later on in life. Ruben Sarino: Yeah, I think, as a kid, I was always into video games, always looking for ways to beat the system in the video games, and then I moved to Japan, and here during the 2000s, everybody had these amazing cell phones, and everything was so digitized, and the experience was so seamless. And I remember thinking to myself as a kid, Japan has figured it out, and has solved a lot of our day-to-day problems to make living a lot smoother, right? Let’s say commuting to work or buying things. And again, early 2000s, so ordering from an app wasn’t really a thing then. But then I got to travel also to third world countries, developing countries, and seeing those same human problems without those same solutions, and thinking to myself, there has to be a better way. And so technology has always, I’d say, fascinated me because at the end of the day, we’re ideally using technology to solve human problems, day-to-day problems, and really to make our lives a lot easier, because why work harder, right? So technology is a great way to help bridge the gap. Manuel Martinez: And you mentioned day-to-day life. Kind of seeing the differences between a third world country or even a developing country and somebody like Japan that is so technology advanced. Did it feel seamless? Like when you go to Japan, it’s not like, oh my gosh, I have to go and do these things because it flows very well. Like I know people that have gone there, and it just, it seems, and you kind of touched on it a little bit, a part of daily life. It’s not like, well, I have to go out of my way to kind of use technology. It’s built into where it almost feels, I’m gonna say, invisible, even though it’s there. Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s the best kind of technology, right? And you hit it spot on. I think, I remember growing up and things were just seamless, right? The way you interact with technology, you don’t think of all of the small systems that build it, but you tap a card to pay. This was, again, early 2000s. So this was like revolutionary, but you tap a card and that’s how you pay for things. That’s how you get into the subway. That’s how you get around. And nowadays that’s, or sorry, traveling to a developing country where I still had to then wait in line to get a ticket, to ride the train, if they had a train in the first place or get a taxi. It was, it’s just mind blowing, right? So being able to see the difference, I would say, like that kind of opened my eyes to like asking, I’ve always been a curious kid, right? Breaking things and taking things apart. And like I said earlier with video games, right? Like I’m always trying to see like, what’s the underlying like technology or system underneath so I can make my life easier, right? So at any rate, yeah, that’s what fascinated me about technology is what’s actually going on underneath that’s helping life become seamless. And then kind of seeing that contrast early on as a kid made me realize like, wait, we can apply probably the same systems to a developing country or to our day-to-day lives or at work. And that’s again, what’s fascinating to me about technology. Manuel Martinez: You kind of grew up, you bounced around and what is it that eventually got your career started? You know, did you think like, hey, I’m gonna go into tech or was it more like, I’m just gonna find a job or go to school or, you know, kind of what was your first step? Ruben Sarino: My first step out of high school, let’s see, travel a lot. So I traveled all over Europe, got to experience a lot of different really cool things. And then I had to reall...

Episode Information Show NotesSometimes the best careers are the ones you never planned. Aakin Patel went to school for geology. He spent years studying plate tectonics and doing computational modeling. The plan was academia. But grad school revealed something important. The academic life he imagined wasn’t the reality he wanted. So he pivoted. He took his Unix skills from graduate research and landed a job as a system administrator. Just temporary. Just while he figured out his next move. That temporary job turned into a 20+ year career in technology and cybersecurity. In This Episode: Aakin shares his journey from geology to becoming a cybersecurity consultant who advises governments and organizations on strategic implementation. He talks about working at Brookhaven National Labs, dealing with the unique security challenges of international scientific research, and building cybersecurity programs before the field had its current name. The conversation digs into the skills that matter most: problem-solving, communication, and the ability to bridge technical and business worlds. Aakin explains why being able to “dumb things down” is actually proof you understand something deeply, and why teaching others became crucial to his leadership success. You’ll also hear about the day his boss literally put him on a plane to management training, why he initially hated it, and how that moment changed his career trajectory. Key Takeaways: – Career pivots don’t have to be permanent disasters—they can become opportunities – Problem-solving skills transfer across completely different fields – Being the bridge between technical and business teams is a superpower – Learning to communicate complex ideas simply is a leadership essential – Technical burnout is real, and strategic roles can be the answer – Teaching others tests whether you truly understand something – Your ability to build and lead teams matters more than any single technical skill – Reputation and relationships open more doors than resumes About Aakin Patel: Aakin Patel is a cybersecurity consultant specializing in strategic implementation for governments and organizations. His background includes geology and geophysics research, Unix system administration, and cybersecurity leadership at national laboratories. He’s built security teams from scratch and helped organizations implement security programs at strategic levels. His mixed background gives him a unique ability to translate between technical complexity and business needs. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I’m very excited. I have with me Aakin Patel, and he is a consultant in the cybersecurity space. We’ve had some conversations about, you know, some of the things he’s done earlier on, how he kind of got into, you know, this field, and just the things that he’s done along the way. So I’m interested to kind of get to know him and how he managed his career a little bit more. And with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Aakin. I appreciate you coming on, Aakin. Aakin Patel: Thank you, it’s good to be here. Manuel Martinez: So one of the things that I kind of start with all the guests is if you don’t mind telling me just a little bit about where you grew up, and then eventually kind of what led you either into the technology field, some people, you know, they fall into it later on. So maybe you started in a different career field. So again, just kind of a little bit of that background about yourself. Aakin Patel: Oh, yeah, so I grew up in the Northeast US in the New York, New Jersey area. I went to college actually for geology and did graduate work in geophysics. And I did a lot of simulation modeling as a part of that because I was studying plate tectonic processes. And, you know, so I did a lot of computer modeling. I got very skilled at like, you know, like Unix systems and like Linux systems when they started coming out and doing some on the programming side, doing some computer modeling. And at some point, I realized that I didn’t want to go into academia, which is where my degree was leading. And kind of as a stopgap measure at the time, I decided to just go out and get a job as a Unix administrator while I figured out what to do with my life. And that’s kind of how I fell into the Unix side of things and kind of grew into cybersecurity as natural evolution roles from that. Manuel Martinez: And when you went to school to kind of study geology, obviously you didn’t want to go the academia side, but what is it that you originally were kind of that attracted you into that field and thought, oh, I want to do something in this area? Aakin Patel: So I’ve always liked like the earth sciences. Like I find them fascinating. I actually very much thought for a very long time that I do want to be a research scientist. So it was like the realities of grad school and seeing like the in-depth look of how that worked and what my long-term, how my long-term career would play out that I realized it wasn’t the path I wanted to proceed down. It was the way it played out in reality. So like I don’t regret doing it. Like I really liked studying that. And it’s kind of like a great like set of background knowledge to have. But like once I realized it wasn’t for me, like I pivoted to something that I could do. And that worked better for me. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, that’s a good point because a lot of times, I mean, especially when we’re that young, right? Or when we’re starting our career, I’ll say, we think that it’s going to be one where we have this grand idea of how it’s going to be and it doesn’t turn out that way. And understanding it’s okay to kind of pivot. So then you decided, okay, I want to do something in the meantime. And you got into Linux system administration. And obviously you didn’t think like, oh, I’m going to make a career at this, at least not at that point. So what is it that you started doing there and kind of start to build that skill set to say, okay, I’m going to at least for now be a good Linux sysadmin? Aakin Patel: So I had to learn Linux system administration and Unix system administration to do the simulation modeling I was doing in grad school, right? Like I worked on Sun Spark stations and then DEC alpha workstations to do a lot of computer modeling. And the DEC alphas ran Linux and the Suns ran Sun OS and then Solaris. So I became good at Unix just as a part of that. So it was like an easy, I could put that on a resume really easily saying, hey, I’ve done all this stuff and get a job doing that. So that was kind of like an easy transition for me while I was looking to go out and kind of figure out, like a stop, I actually just figured I’d be doing that for a year or two, then refresh and then come back into academia. And I just, after a year or two, I was like, I don’t really want to go back. So I didn’t. Manuel Martinez: Did you think that, okay, maybe I’ll pivot and go somewhere else as opposed to staying as a Linux sysadmin? You’re like, okay, I don’t want to go back into academia. That’s not the area for me. Did you think, okay, let me kind of see what this Linux administration does for me or were you kind of exploring other opportunities? Aakin Patel: I wasn’t really sure I was keeping an eye out, but like my first job, like when I switched out was working just off Wall Street in New York City, working on like bonds trading systems. And while a cool job that paid fairly decently, it involved like a two and a half hour commute each way just because of the traffic around New York City. And I rapidly realized that I was doing like 15 hour days that I didn’t want to be doing. And then I got like a different job and I kind of lucked into a job at Brookhaven National Labs, which is one of the department energy national labs, national labs. And they did a lot of very interesting like research projects and like, it was like a very cool facility to work at. And they hired me interestingly because of my mixed background, right? Like they wanted someone with that academic background who was also skilled in technology because it was like a science and research facility and they kind of needed someone who could bridge the two worlds, like the worlds of the academics and the scientists working there with the technology needs and the technology directors of the IT department there that served those scientists. And that’s kind of how I landed in that role. And that was a cool enough job and a cool enough place that I was actually pretty happy staying there for a long time. Manuel Martinez: And it sounds like it probably kind of met a little bit of, like, hey, I’m doing this Linux administration, which you seem to kind of like, but it also gave you some of that research that while you didn’t want to go into academia, it sounded like initially like, hey, this fascinates me. I want to kind of do a little bit more of that research, but not really be like a full-time academic researcher. Aakin Patel: Yeah Manuel Martinez: And having both of those skillsets and being that bridge, one of the things that you kind of told me is there were areas that you weren’t proficient or knowledgeable enough. And it was kind of, you know, you were thrown into this role. So kind of tell me a little bit more about that. Aakin Patel: Yeah, so when I first started, like in the technology field, it’s very weird....

Episode Information Show NotesFrom Age 7 to MSP Owner: Simon Robert’s IT Journey Simon Robert’s IT career started earlier than most, at just 7 years old, he was already fixing computers his father brought home. Now, as President of Novbox in Las Vegas, Simon runs a managed service provider that helps businesses stay secure and operational. In this episode, Simon shares the honest reality of running an IT business. He talks about the stress of being a “one-man army” for years, why admitting “I don’t know” actually builds more trust than pretending to be an expert, and how communication saves client relationships when things go wrong. Episode Highlights: Starting Young Simon began his IT journey at age 7, disassembling and repairing broken computers his father brought home. This early hands-on experience gave him confidence and skills that would shape his entire career. The One-Man Army Problem For 10 years, Simon ran his business alone. He describes the impossible stress of choosing between multiple emergency calls happening simultaneously and why having a business partner changed everything. Honest Communication Wins When clients leave or when something goes wrong, Simon picks up the phone immediately. He shares why confronting problems early, even at 7pm, prevents bigger issues the next morning. Break/Fix vs MSP Model Simon explains the fundamental difference between being an IT firefighter and providing managed services. The MSP model eliminates billing drama and gives clients peace of mind. IT Specialization Reality Just because someone works “in IT” doesn’t mean they do everything. Simon uses the electrician vs plumber analogy to explain why IT professionals specialize and why that’s perfectly okay. The Vegas Tech Community After moving from Quebec to Las Vegas years ago, Simon has been actively building connections in the local tech community. He believes in turning LinkedIn connections into real friendships. Key Takeaways: 1. Admitting “I don’t know” and asking for help builds more trust than pretending to be an expert in everything 2. Communication is priority #1 – confront problems immediately instead of avoiding them 3. Having a business partner or team prevents burnout and enables business growth 4. The MSP model provides stability for both provider and client compared to break/fix 5. Building genuine relationships, both online and in person, creates lasting professional networks 6. Know your strengths and confidently refer out what you don’t do well 7. When clients leave, call them to understand why instead of hiding from the conversation About Simon Robert: Simon Robert is the President of Novbox, an IT managed service provider in Las Vegas. With over 30 years of experience starting from age 7, Simon specializes in helping businesses maintain secure and reliable IT infrastructure through managed services. Listen to learn how honest communication, genuine relationships, and knowing when to ask for help can transform your career – whether you’re running your own business or working in corporate IT. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their experiences and their background, to really try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode, I have with me Simon Robert. And this is a very interesting story, so him and I actually connected on LinkedIn, we actually met in person, you know, just in an informal setting, got to know each other, to know about each other a little bit more about his career. And he has kind of established his own business. So again, this is going to be something different than all of the other traditional ones where you know, a lot of people are working for corporate jobs. So I think there will be a lot of, you know, good insights into the way that he managed it and you know, some of the different things that he does for his own career, managing his own business as opposed to kind of working for someone else. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Simon. Simon Robert: Hey, nice to see you in person again. Manuel Martinez: Again. Simon Robert: It’s so nice. I was so happy, you know, remember a couple of months ago, we chat a little bit on LinkedIn. And I said, hey, do you want to smoke a cigar with me? Yes, of course. You agree directly. I was like, this is so nice to have the possibility to have a platform like LinkedIn that we can connect and after that do something in person. That’s amazing. And thank you very much for the invitation to your podcast. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, of course. And I was glad that you kind of reached out because one of the things that you’ve done and I’ll be honest, I’ve started to do it a little bit more too is when I see people and I interact and I see that they’re locally in Vegas, I do a lot of what you do. I’m like, oh, I see you’re in Vegas. It’d be great to meet up for, you know, hey, maybe you want to do a coffee or do a lunch or to kind of grow my IT community outside of the people that I normally work with, which is also outside. So thank you. Simon Robert: Yeah. And you know, like we’re a little city. People thinks that Vegas is very, very a large city, but it’s not L.A., you know, we’re about one million people here. So that’s pretty nice to connect with other people in IT. So that’s amazing. So I’m doing that too. So each time I’m connecting with somebody in the IT, I want to go take a beer with me. Yes, of course. So that’s nice. So it gave us the opportunity to connect and build our IT network in Vegas. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, definitely. And then also do things again, it doesn’t, I think one of the things that people think is, you know, it has to be just IT related, right? Like, I mean, we talked a little bit about IT, but it was really just kind of getting to know more about you, you know, what you’re doing, you know, like you were very passionate about cigars and I, you know, I’ve had a couple here and there, but it was, you know, kind of you teaching me and you know, the people that you have outside in that kind of ecosystem, which is really cool. Simon Robert: That was nice. I’m part of that cigar club and every Wednesday night we smoke a different cigar. So that’s pretty cool. And it forced us to connect, you know, instead of being in our backyards alone smoking the cigar we’re smoking together, it’s like a family. So I appreciate that. So I’m very happy that you have the chance to experience that. Manuel Martinez: What I do with all my guests is if you don’t mind kind of telling me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what sparked your interest in technology. Simon Robert: So I grew up in the Repentigny. This is a city in Quebec. So it’s very not so far away from Montreal. It’s a southern city and it’s very special because a lot of people don’t know about Quebec. It’s a French province of Canada. So like, let’s say like 70 or 80% of people speaks French and sometimes they only speaks French. They don’t speak English. So it’s like being in Paris, but like in North America. So I grew up there in my city. Everybody was speaking French. So we’re like, it was so special. Like the first time I went to Montreal, Montreal, it’s more bilingual. I will say there’s a part of the eastern part of Montreal speaks French and the western part will speak more, more English. So I was like very amazed of, wow, there’s people speaking another language even in my, in my province. And I start working in IT. I’ll say my passion start when I was maybe like six, seven years old because of my father. My father was bringing the computers of his clients. So it was not working directly in IT, but there was some computers that were broken and my father were helping his customer by bringing back the computer trying to repair. So I was observing what he was doing. And after that, that was nice because a couple of times he said, oh, that computer is broken. There was nothing to do. You can keep it, Simon. So I was using my screwdriver, removing all the parts, trying to repair, trying to fix the issue. And most of the time I was able to fix the issue, like using a spare part from another computer, making sure that they were compatible. And then voila, I was able to repair computers at seven years old. And after that, my father was so amazed because he didn’t have to do the repairs. He said, hey, Simon, I got something for you. Manuel Martinez: Keeps you busy. Simon Robert: Yeah, exactly. So he was happy. He was doing business and he was doing like, he didn’t have to do the repairs. I was doing it for free. So he was happy with that. And there’s a good thing with that because I was not like so near to my father because my father was like more like, I’ve been like that. I don’t say to my kids, I love them. You know, it was like more cold. Because I was working with him, repairing the computers, I had the opportunity to have a lot of time with him. So that’s pretty cool because I’m sure that if I didn’t have the patience for IT or for computers, I will not be as near to my father that I am right now. Manuel Martinez: So then would you say that kind of your, because you mentioned it before, right? With the cigars and with the bonding with people, do you think that technology, and I’ve seen a little bit of kind of what you do and the connections that you have, is that something that you think probably, I know at seven years old, you weren’t thinking like, oh, this is a way for also for ...

Episode Information Show NotesTechnical skills land you the job. People skills determine everything that comes next. Yvette Durazo brings conflict resolution expertise to Silicon Valley tech companies. As a professional mediator and coach, she helps technical professionals navigate the transition into leadership roles. She teaches at universities and works with companies to build conflict intelligence throughout their organizations. This episode tackles a gap most bootcamps and certifications ignore. You can master Python, ace the PM certification, and still struggle when team dynamics turn difficult. Yvette explains why project managers need influence skills nobody warned them about, how unresolved conflict creates measurable health costs, and why companies should budget for these skillsets differently. Episode Highlights: Manuel and Yvette discuss the inevitable shift from technical work to people management. Most engineers and developers focus on hard skills early in their careers. Then they move into project management or team leadership and discover a new challenge: working with people they don’t directly supervise. Yvette shares her experience teaching conflict resolution in project management certificate programs. The programs teach scheduling, budgeting, and timeline management. They rarely prepare students for influencing stakeholders across the organization. That gap creates real problems when projects involve multiple departments. The conversation moves into conflict health. Yvette describes how prolonged workplace stress affects cortisone levels, cognitive function, and physical wellbeing. Employees operating in constant fight-or-flight mode can’t access creativity or innovation. Companies lose productivity and face increased absenteeism. You’ll hear why Yvette advocates for moving conflict resolution training from learning and development budgets into risk management. The training gets cut first when budgets tighten if leadership sees it as optional development. Treating it as risk mitigation changes the conversation. The episode closes with Yvette’s perspective on “bringing your whole self to work.” She suggests companies would benefit more from supporting employees to bring their healthy selves to work instead. Key Takeaways: – Technical expertise alone won’t carry you through leadership transitions – Project management inherently requires influence skills across reporting lines – Workplace conflict creates measurable physical and mental health impacts – Fight-or-flight responses eliminate creativity and productivity – Conflict resolution belongs in risk management, not just Learning and Development – Companies benefit from employees bringing their healthy selves to work About This Week’s Guest: Yvette Durazo works as a professional mediator and coach in Silicon Valley. She specializes in helping tech leaders develop conflict intelligence. Her work includes teaching university courses, coaching individual leaders, and facilitating organizational conflict resolution. She’s the author of “Conflict Intelligence Quotient.” Resources Mentioned: Book: “Conflict Intelligence Quotient” by Yvette Durazo Subscribe to Career Downloads: Get weekly career advice from tech leaders managing their own career journeys. Available on all podcast platforms. #CareerDownloads #ConflictResolution #TechLeadership #CareerDevelopment TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest, to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really uncover actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for today’s episode, because I have with me Yvette Durazo. And she’s not what you would consider your tech… Your typical tech worker. So she specializes in conflict resolution, and she teaches at universities. She’s also worked for a lot of companies. She’s based in the Silicon Valley. And it’s really to kind of help people who are looking to be leaders within the tech community. So she’s got a lot of insights there. So I’m excited to kind of find out more about how she started, eventually what led her into this career field, and how she was able to kind of merge that and help leaders, you know, again, within the technology sector. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Yvette. Yvette Durazo: Thank you, Manuel, for inviting me to your podcast and inviting me to interact with your audience and be able to be part of this movement that you’re doing in educating people and helping to build their careers. Manuel Martinez: Right. And thank you again for kind of coming on. And I know that we had a couple of conversations prior to this, and I think it’s important because I don’t know how much of this type of information. And again, just trying to share with others, you know, we talk about soft skills and technical skills, and those are important. But I think things like this, like conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, and there are people that, you know, starting out in their career, they’re like, okay, well, I want to be a software developer, I want to be a project manager. But at some point, you, even if you’re not a direct manager leader, you’re going to lead smaller teams. So understanding how to resolve conflict. I know that this would have been something that I can think of a number of situations where it would have helped me to kind of have some of that information instead of trying to learn it on the fly or after the fact. Yvette Durago: Yeah, you’re right. A lot of the people are in the tech industry. They go out and learn a field of work that it is, you know, very hard skills, right? Very intellectually in hard skills. But there are parts in the process of their career that they go in, for example, into project management, because they know that somehow they will be working with teams, or they perhaps going to getting an MBA thinking that, you know, their career trajectory will lead them into become, you know, leaders, managers, and going up the ladder in the organization. And the more that you go up the ladder in the organization, one of the things that is going to be something that is going to happen and it’s common is the fact that you’re going to be working more with people, right? And it is interesting that when people going through the trajectory of learning more about project management and they go through a certificate process, little do they realize that project management leads to having to learn how to influence people. People that are working in your entire company, that you’re not directly managing or supervising yet because you’re responsible for a particular project, you have to learn how to influence these individuals that come to your team. And believe it or not, the project management certificate program back in the days when I started, you know, teaching courses in conflict resolution, I realized that project managers were not very well taught about conflict resolution. The book that is the project management book, the what is the PMP book, I think it’s called, there was only one or two pages in conflict resolution. And it is interesting that it’s a field work that you need to deal with teams, with people. Eventually I think that they realized the project management institute where I used to give a lot of my workshops, they realized that the skill is very much needed. And eventually they start upping up and bringing more people skills into this work. So in reality, what tends to happen as people grow up in their career, that is going to be the tendency, having to learn these people skills. And LinkedIn recently did a research study into what are the skill gaps that they continue to see that it’s missing in the workplace. And out of those 15 that they ended up researching, the number one skill missing was AI, right? Because right now, in the world that we are, AI is the most important. The second one was communication, conflict resolution, how to negotiate with people. So we see through the research throughout these past 15 years that conflict resolution and being able to have those difficult conversations with people, be able to resolve human conflict has been in all of these research studies in the skill gaps that is mostly needed in the organization. And the more we progress into life, we see that it’s a key skill. It’s not what they used to call it a soft skill anymore. It is one of those essential skills that is mostly needed. Manuel Martinez: And I know we’re going to start getting into that, so I want to save that for a little bit later in the conversation. But if you don’t mind, tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually led you down this path towards your career. Yvette Durazo: Sure. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I was very lucky to be born in a border town in where I had the opportunity to be able to commingle with the two different cultures, you know, Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego. My father used to own a company in the other side of the border and that was kind of like playground as a child because I was the youngest of seven and I used to always be with my dad because it was fascinating to be around his business and playing to be the accountant, playing to help him out in the workplace. That was my playground. And I grew up in the other side in San Diego, going to school since I was in Kinder all the way until now, right? Because of the fact that I was raised in a bi-national border, it always caught my attention, the ability to be able to understand different cultures. In San Diego, not only you have a predominant am...

Episode Information Show Notes What happens when you combine curiosity, willingness to take chances, and genuine interest in people? You get Bob Leek’s career story – a journey from a small town in North Carolina to becoming CIO of Clark County, Nevada. Bob didn’t start with a master plan. He got an accounting degree, landed in retail finance, and complained about IT systems so much they moved him to technology. His path through retail (Egghead), pet healthcare (Banfield), Kaiser Permanente, and public sector roles taught him that relationships matter more than transactions, and that saying yes to opportunities often matters more than having all the credentials. Now leading technology for one of America’s largest counties – serving 2.3 million residents and 40 million annual visitors – Bob brings an approachable leadership style that breaks down the intimidation factor many feel around executive titles. He’s proof that you don’t need to have it all figured out from day one. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Bob shares how growing up in Mount Airy, North Carolina (Andy Griffith’s hometown) shaped his values around community and connection. His entry into technology came from an accounting degree and working in finance at Egghead, where he complained about IT systems so much they moved him to the technology department. The conversation covers his progression through retail technology, pet healthcare (Banfield), Kaiser Permanente, and Multnomah County before making the jump to Clark County. Bob explains what it means to manage technology infrastructure for millions of people while maintaining his commitment to accessibility and relationship-building. You’ll hear about his philosophy on networking (hint: it’s not about collecting business cards), why he asks questions without worrying about looking uninformed, and how curiosity has been his career accelerator. Bob also opens up about being a “professional extrovert and social introvert” and what that means for how he shows up in his role. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Complaining about problems can lead to opportunities if you’re willing to help fix them Asking questions, even ones you think might sound basic, accelerates your learning Real networking is about genuine curiosity, not transactional exchanges Saying yes to opportunities matters more than waiting until you feel fully prepared Building relationships with people across industries creates career momentum Leadership roles don’t have to be intimidating – accessibility builds stronger teams ABOUT THE GUEST: Bob Leek is the Chief Information Officer for Clark County, Nevada. His career began with an accounting degree and moved through retail technology (Egghead), pet healthcare (Banfield), Kaiser Permanente, and public sector leadership at Multnomah County. Bob’s approachable style and commitment to community-building have made him a respected figure in technology leadership. CONNECT WITH BOB: Find Bob on LinkedIn or reach out through Clark County official channels. He genuinely means it when he says to come say hi at events. SUBSCRIBE & CONNECT: Career Downloads brings you conversations with technology leaders and professionals to help you manage your career with more success. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on YouTube. Join our community on the social platforms: Website: https://careerdownloads.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 TranscriptionManuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really uncover any actionable advice that we can provide to you as you’re managing your own career. So I’m very excited today that I have with me Bob Leek. So he is the CIO for Clark County. For those of you that aren’t aware, and I’m sure Bob will bring us up to speed, but Clark County is one of the largest counties in the nation. So, you know, I’m interested to kind of get into how he eventually landed into that role and a lot of the things that he’s doing to kind of better not only, you know, his organization, but the community as a whole. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Bob. Bob: Thanks for having me here. Manuel: I appreciate you, you know, taking the time to kind of go through and share your experiences. So you and I have had conversations, you know, outside of here. And I think one of the big things, and I think the reason that I’m excited to have you on here and kind of share your story is a lot of times people see a name or they see a title and they’re like, oh, Bob Leek, a CIO, or oh, a Rishma, our, you know, they see these titles and they think it’s almost intimidating to them. And one of the things that I’ve been fortunate enough is I know you all outside of here and I don’t have kind of that, okay, he’s a CIO, he’s a person, but now I want to give you the opportunity to kind of show that and show people like, okay, he’s just a regular person. So when I come across Bob at an event, which, you know, I’ve come across and, you know, we’ve seen each other at a lot of these, but to come and say, hey, I can come and say hi and, you know, and kind of introduce themselves. Bob: Yeah, please do that. I’m a professional extrovert, I’m a social introvert. So I relish the opportunity for people to come up and talk with me. I love engaging with people. Manuel: So if you kind of start off, if you can tell us, you know, where you grew up and then eventually what got you interested in kind of pursuing technology. Bob: Yeah, so it’s an interesting story. So I was four years old when we moved to the United States. I was born in the Netherlands. My dad worked for a flower bulb export company and they decided that there was an opportunity to move some of their operations to the United States. And so he came home one day and said, we’re gonna move to North Carolina. And not just anywhere in North Carolina, but Mount Airy, North Carolina, which is Andy Griffith’s hometown. So that’s gonna be familiar to a lot of people from the Andy Griffith Show, right? It was in color when I was there. It wasn’t black and white, but growing up in a town with 20,000 people, what you saw in the Andy Griffith Show with Mayberry, that’s what I grew up in. A couple of stoplights, a very close knit community. I grew up in the early 70s, mid to late 70s, the formative years, playing Little League Baseball and playing soccer and being involved in the church and all the things that you could imagine in small town America. And it was a great place to grow up. I learned English from a good friend of mine, James. I lived in the neighborhood with me. He literally took me around and said, that’s a rock. That’s a squirrel. That’s a tree. So I learned English through Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, all of that, that was in that era. And so it was really formative to me to grow up in a small American community like that and really put a set of values and principles in place for me that I still carry forward to today. So my dad then had a second big influence on my life. In 1987, I was gonna be a senior in high school. I was gonna graduate second in the class. My good friend, Todd, was gonna graduate first. It’s the first time in the history of that high school that two boys were gonna graduate at the top of their class. My dad came home and said, guess what? We’re moving to Atlanta, Georgia. We’re moving to Lawrenceville. At that time, it was Gwinnett County, fastest growing county in the country for like five years. We were a family that moved into a neighborhood that had 70 homes in it. We were the second family that moved in. Within six months, the entire neighborhood was full of people. I went from a high school with 300 kids in it to a graduating class with 500 kids in it. And so culture shock, right? Giant high school, 2400 kids in a high school, six-story high school, big athletics, a 6A school. Here I was coming from this really small environment into this giant environment. And I walked in the door and I was second in the class in terms of academics. That caused some backlash from the people that had been going to school there for their entire lives, right? So took some AP classes, small-knit community, tanked my senior year. Just totally said, you know what? I’m not gonna be part of disrupting that group, that culture, those close-knit high school folks. And several of them became really good friends. So I tanked my senior year. I went from second in the class of 500 to fifth. And so, you know, I think I had a B, maybe two. And so it’s, again, another formulative time in my life in having been disrupted from moving from the Netherlands to the United States, then moving from small town to gigantic town. And that’s really formed the core of what I’ve done. Went to college in the North Georgia mountains, private school, got an accounting degree, worked for a couple of companies in Atlanta, met my wife, now my wife. We’ve been married 30 years next year in Buckhead. That’ll be familiar to many people. Met ...

Episode Information Show Notes Episode Summary: Vika Nevmyvakova’s career path looks nothing like she planned. She arrived in the US from Ukraine at 20 with law school dreams. No resources to make it happen. No network. No connections. She took whatever jobs paid bills. Call centers. Customer service. The work most people see as stepping stones, she turned into skill-building. That’s where she discovered she loved talking to people and solving problems. More importantly, she was good at it. Today she consults with pre-funding stage startups on sales operations. She helps technical founders who built genius products but struggle to sell them. Her career philosophy is simple: take shots you’re not ready for. Apply when you meet 60% of requirements. Ask questions that might sound stupid. Build expertise through curiosity. This conversation unpacks her immigration journey, multiple career pivots, working through language barriers, and why she tells everyone to stop waiting until they feel prepared. What You’ll Discover: Her path from Ukraine to US tech sales consulting Why call center work taught skills law school wouldn’t Sales consulting for early-stage startups and what founders actually need How curiosity became her biggest competitive advantage The confidence gap: men apply at 60%, women wait for 100% Real talk about working with an accent and language barriers Her interview preparation tactics using YouTube How to articulate value versus just listing product features Why following through on commitments builds credibility faster than anything else The “what’s the worst that can happen” mindset that changed her career Key Takeaways: Your career doesn’t need to follow the plan you made at 20. Vika’s path from law school aspirations to tech sales happened through a series of sideways moves. Customer service work taught communication skills and problem-solving under pressure that translated directly to sales. Curiosity beats credentials. She built her expertise by sitting through engineering demos, joining product calls, and asking endless questions. When she talks to customers, she can articulate value in ways others can’t because she did the work to deeply understand the business. The confidence gap is real and costly. Men typically apply when they meet 60% of job requirements. Women wait for 100%. The difference? Men who apply get hired. If you don’t take the shot, you already have a no. Following through separates average from excellent. Tell someone you’ll look something up and actually do it. Your credibility lives or dies on this one habit. Guest Bio: Vika Nevmyvakova is a Sales Consultant working with pre-funding stage startups. She helps technical founders develop sales strategies, implement CRM systems, and translate complex features into clear customer value. Born in Ukraine, she moved to the US at 20, pivoted from law aspirations to technology, and built her career by staying relentlessly curious and taking shots before feeling ready. Resources Mentioned: YouTube for interview preparation and skill development Mock interview practice CRM systems for startups Prospecting platforms for early-stage companies Listen to the full episode to hear Vika’s complete story and get her unfiltered advice on making career moves before you feel prepared. Subscribe to Career Downloads: New episodes every week featuring technology leaders sharing real career lessons. #CareerDownloads #SalesConsulting #CareerChange #TechCareers #StartupLife #ImmigrantStory TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and again, this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s guests. So today I have with me Vika Nevmevakova, and we met at a networking event. We got to talking, I learned a little bit more about kind of what she’s currently doing, some of the things that she’s done in the past, found it very interesting and intriguing. So looking forward to learning more about, you know, some of those experiences. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Vika. Vika: Thank you for having me, I’m so excited to be here. Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on and, you know, being willing to kind of share your experiences. I know we kind of had a little touch point ahead of time. So really looking forward to learning more about it. Vika: Me too, let’s do it. Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind to start off, can you tell us what your current role is and just a summary of some of the roles and responsibilities? Vika: Sure, so currently I’m doing consulting, mostly around sales, sales operations, for smaller startups, usually pre-funding stage startups, because that’s where they need help most and aren’t at the stage yet where they can hire a big team or set up processes or even platforms and applications, because a lot of times they’re costly. So I try to come in and help them first of all, develop a strategy, understand what their selling goal is, what they’re trying to get to that year, that month, that quarter, and then provide them with the tools, do the research based on what budget they have available and set them up with prospecting platforms, CRM systems, and something to track revenue once it starts coming in, help with just looking over their webpage to see how a customer might perceive it. A lot of times, software is built by, you know, a super technical person, usually genius, that developed something from a good idea and they’re very technical and they, not necessarily, are very good at perception in terms of how the market might see it. Obviously their product is great. They may have sold it already, maybe like to smaller customers, maybe individual licenses, but a lot of times I just wanna come in and see what a potential prospect would see when they look at the page, like pricing, features, what the value is, are they communicating the value? Because a lot of times they’ll list all the features, but not necessarily connecting the whole picture so that the prospect might look at it and be like, okay, well, that looks cool, but like what problem does it solve for me? So I usually try to come in and say, we need to articulate it for them so that it’s easy. Once they get on the website, they’re like, ah, okay, that’s gonna help me fix XYZ. And that’s how you generate sales. Manuel Martinez: And I’m excited to kind of dig into your journey and understand how you were able to kind of develop those skills to be able to now put those into practice to help these businesses. Vika: Yeah. Manuel Martinez: So now if you don’t mind, tell me a little bit more about kind of where you grew up and then eventually kind of what led you into eventually getting into technology. Vika: So I was born and raised in Ukraine, moved to the States when I was almost 20 years old, just a few months shy of that. And been plotting that move since I was 12. When you’re 12, people just look at you like, yeah, okay, right. You don’t have the knowledge about the country, you don’t have much money, how are you gonna make it happen? And I began working in high school, the last few years of high school, and then I actually started at a telemarketing role. In its unmarketing role. At a company that was founded by a Dutch businessman and they sold security systems for homes. Now in Kharkiv, which is the city I grew up in, a lot of people live in apartment buildings or condos, and there’s not much single family homes, so it’s a lot of apartments, right? And we had to set appointments for field reps to go out and sell them the systems in their home. The trick to that, or I guess the fun fact, was that back then, and it’s hard to imagine living in the States of course, Ukraine or in general was not, telemarketing in general was not popular in Ukraine just yet. I think in my city at least, and this is the second largest city in Ukraine, they, I think they might have been the first ones to do that. So imagine you’re trying to do your job and call these people, and they’re not familiar with the concept of telemarketing. So they answer their phone and there was a stranger on the phone, and you try to tell them about this security system, how great it is, and then you’re like, okay, so what is a good time for us to come out to your home and provide you with an estimate and hear about your needs to make sure that your apartment is covered? They’re like, wait, what? You’re not coming tomorrow. How do you know my address? Where’d you get my name? So even though in the States some people ask that, right? But people usually know, like there’s lists and all that stuff. But we were pretty much the first ones in the city to try to educate the public on this is the thing. We get your information from some sort of a list and we’re not the bad guys, we just wanna actually help you out. It was a legitimate company for sure. And as we try to sell that, I would get a paper list. Go down the list, name, phone number, all that, and set appointments. So that was pretty much my first, very first introduction into sales. And I never thought I was gonna end up in sales after that. It was a difficult, very difficult job. Lots of rejection, lots of screaming on the phone at me. But yeah, then I moved to the US and started going to community college at night. Manuel Martinez: So I did...

Episode Information Show Notes Jazmin Diaz’s career story dismantles the myth that you need perfect credentials to succeed in technology. Her path from middle school administrative assistant to Chief of Staff at a cybersecurity company demonstrates how curiosity, authenticity, and strategic relationship-building can accelerate professional growth. Episode Highlights: Jazmin shares her unique background growing up between two cultures – born in California, raised in Mexico until age nine, then returning to relearn English and navigate American educational systems. This experience shaped her ability to connect with others facing similar challenges, particularly at-risk students during her time working in education. The conversation reveals practical strategies for career transitions, including how she researched transferable skills, leveraged informational interviews, and ultimately secured her first tech role through networking rather than traditional applications. Her willingness to start as a receptionist – despite years of experience – proved essential for getting her foot in the door. Key Takeaways: Networking authentically means building relationships without immediate agenda Being uncomfortable signals growth opportunities worth pursuing Self-advocacy requires data and strategic timing, not just confidence Starting at entry level in a new industry can fast-track learning and advancement Salary negotiation extends beyond base pay to stock options, bonuses, and benefits Vulnerability and authenticity create stronger professional connections than perfection Resources Mentioned: Book: “Ignite Your Growth” by Jazmin Diaz (English) Book: “Enciende Tu Crecimiento” by Jazmin Diaz (Spanish) Flourish Learning and Development Connect with Our Guest: Jazmin Diaz is available for speaking engagements, workshops, and coaching through Flourish Learning and Development. Her book is available in both English and Spanish editions. About Career Downloads: Each episode features professionals sharing real experiences, setbacks, and breakthroughs to help you manage your own career with greater success. Host Manuel Martinez brings conversations that go beyond surface-level advice to uncover actionable insights you can apply immediately. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really uncover how they’ve managed their career over time with the ultimate goal to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m really excited for today’s episode. This has really been eight, almost nine months in the making. So for those of you who are aware, back in December, I had Cynthia Hara on and a mutual contact of my current guest and Cynthia’s kind of got in contact with me, put me in contact with Jazmin Diaz is who I have on. We’ve had a number of conversations since that time trying to work out, so she’s not local to Las Vegas, just trying to find out logistically how this would work out. And I’m really excited because apart from the alignment of what she’s currently doing, what she’s done, kind of what the podcast is, in between that time, she has also become an author and she’s written a book, both in English and in Spanish, again, around career and professional development and personal development. So I’m really excited and this is gonna be a great one. So with that, I will go ahead and introduce Jazmin Diaz. Jazmin Diaz: Thank you so much for having me, Manny. Really glad to be here with you finally. Manuel Martinez: Finally, right. I mean, it’s interesting that when Sal kind of put us in contact, it took us a little while. We’d look back and it’s almost nine months that this has gone on and I think it happened at this moment for a reason, right? Because it gave you the chance, we didn’t know at a time when we first met, but that you were gonna be writing a book. Jazmin Diaz: Right, right. Yeah, no, I think things happen when they’re supposed to and I very much agree for this instance specifically. So since you and I spoke, yeah, was able to get the English version out of my book, “Ignite Your Growth”, in March of 2025 and the Spanish version “Enciende Tu Crecimento” literally just launched earlier this week on August 20th. Manuel Martinez: Right. So for those that may not be aware of who you are, if you don’t mind just telling us kind of what your current role is and some of the responsibilities associated with that. Jazmin Diaz: Sure, sure. So I’m currently working in the tech space in a cybersecurity company in the capacity of a chief of staff role for the global customer services team. Our headquarters are located in San Francisco. And in addition to that, I run my own company. So I am CEO and founder of Flourish Learning and Development. And it’s really a company that’s dedicated towards helping individuals unlock their potential, whether it’s through coaching, through speaking engagements or workshops, and now leveraging the book as well as a tool. So I do that as well on the side. And a mother of four children and never a dull moment in my life. So grateful and blessed and a lot to juggle all the time. Manuel Martinez: Oh, I bet. I know that we’ve had similar conversations, having family and career as much as we say at times, like, oh, we’re able to separate them. I mean, they intertwine. Jazmin Diaz: They do, absolutely. Manuel Martinez: So now if you don’t mind kind of going back a little bit and telling me about where you grew up and then eventually kind of– we’ll get into it because you didn’t get into technology right away into the tech industry, but just kind of what kind of started your career. We’ll go that route. Jazmin Diaz: Yeah, so I’ll take it back to somewhat the beginning. So I was born in California, a city called Mountain View. And I was a product of a teenage mom, a teenage mother. And so I was raised by her and my grandparents. So early on in my life, we moved to Mexico, to a town called Degollado, Jalisco. And I grew up there for the first nine years of my life. So I was attending school regularly, living, breathing the culture every day, which I love, and just traditions and family values, community, learn how to read, write, speak, fluent Spanish during those years. And then my grandparents made the decision to come back to California. So moved back to California around the age of nine, got into the school system here, which was really challenging for me, because I had pretty much lost my English. I remember while I was being raised in Mexico, one of my aunts would send me videos of Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, Brady Bunch, different shows to try to kind of keep that English in my speaking abilities. And while it helped, it wasn’t enough. When we came back, I was in ESL classes. So English as a second language, how to relearn everything, the systems, the norms, cultural nuances that were different. And for a nine-year-old, I remember struggling to navigate a lot of that stuff. And so thankfully, it turned out pretty well. I was able to manage and finish high school. And then my husband and I, we were 18 when we got married. And by no means was there any roadmap or plan of, these are our goals. This is what we’re going to do by this date or anything like that. We just knew we wanted to be together and raise a family. And so, yeah, fast forward. We got married. We had children. And I was working at a local middle school in our neighborhood. And it was really a wonderful job for a lot of reasons. So I worked in the office as a admin assistant, school operations. And it was quite fulfilling because I didn’t just order supplies or help with attendance and budget management and all those things. I was able to intentionally create space to have conversations with the students. These were middle school kids. And they were kids who were labeled at risk. And what I mean by that is kids that are typically growing up in neighborhoods where it’s rough. It’s the hood or gang activity, single moms, parents working multiple jobs, perhaps not attended to as much as other children. So for me, these were really opportunities in my day to day to have conversations with these kids to try to change their stories, outlooks, perspectives, based on what I had experienced as also being labeled at risk at one point in my life. So that job, in addition to allowing me to connect with these young people and make a positive impact, it also gave me the flexibility that I needed as a mom to spend time with the kids. And what I mean by that is that the schedule was summers off, holiday, recess, winter break, spring break. As much as I would have loved to be a stay-at-home mom to be with my kids full time, this was the next best thing. It allowed us to be financially stable, to give them all the things that we wish we would have experienced or had– after school activities, sports, travel, whatever that was. That was definitely something that was top of mind and a priority for my husband and I both. So that job was amazing. It was great. It was fulfilling, impact, purpose, all the things when you think about the ideal job. However, me being me, there was a point where I knew I wanted more and I knew that I was capable of more. And I referenced not having a roadmap or a five-year plan. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. It was just finish high school and we’ll go from there. So when our kids were older– Manuel Martinez: A...

Episode Information Show Notes Episode Highlights: Join host Manuel Martinez for an inspiring conversation with Rishma Khimji, the pioneering CIO of Harry Reid International Airport. Her story begins with constant movement – nine cities across two countries – and leads to managing technology systems that serve millions of travelers annually. Rishma’s career trajectory breaks conventional wisdom about climbing corporate ladders. Starting as a junior programmer debugging code for IBM, she discovered her true calling lay in making technology invisible to end users. Her public sector experience spans water utilities, police departments, and now aviation – each role teaching her how technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. Key Takeaways: Embrace Your Migration Story: Constant change teaches adaptability and opens doors you never imagined Failure Equals Course Correction: Build backup plans (A, B, and C) because your primary approach won’t always work Technology Should Be Invisible: The best systems are the ones passengers never think about Community Amplifies Success: Surround yourself with people who champion your growth Apply at 50% Qualification: Stop waiting until you’re 100% ready – most learning happens on the job AI as Augmented Influence: Use technology to enhance your capabilities, not replace your humanity Resources Mentioned: “Smart Brevity” book referenced by Manuel Airport common-use technology systems RFID baggage tracking implementation Public sector technology transformation strategies About Rishma Khimji: Rishma serves as Chief Information Officer for the Clark County Department of Aviation, managing technology operations for Harry Reid International Airport and four general aviation facilities. Her leadership spans over 25 years in technology, with experience transforming operations across utilities, law enforcement, and aviation sectors. She’s recognized for her innovative approaches to making technology serve community needs. Connect with Our Guest: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishmakhimji/ Next Steps: Ready to accelerate your tech career? Subscribe to Career Downloads for weekly episodes featuring leaders who’ve navigated unconventional paths to success. Each conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement immediately. Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their experiences and their background, to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s guest. I have with me Rishma Khimji and I have crossed paths with her close up, I’ve come close to crossing paths with her a few times. She’s worked on the public sector and when I used to work at VMware, covering public sector. So that’s kind of when I first became aware of her. I’ve seen a lot of what she’s done since that time. So I’m really excited to kind of get to know more about her and how she’s kind of continued to navigate her career. So with that, I’ll introduce Rishma. Rishma: Hi. Manuel: Hi, I appreciate you coming on and again, being willing to share your experiences. Rishma: No, absolutely, happy to be here. So, I know we haven’t always crossed paths face to face but there’s always been an intersection of acquaintances for us. And so I’m very excited to be here because those friends that have already been on this podcast have spoken very highly of you and so I feel very honored to be here. So thank you. Manuel: Thank you, I appreciate that. So if you don’t mind kind of telling people a little bit more about what your current role is and kind of some of the responsibilities that you have to manage. Rishma: Sure, so I’m the first chief information technology officer for the Harry Reid International Airport, more so the Clark County Department of Aviation. We are a system of five airports. So we have the major airport, which is the Harry Reid Airport. And then we have four general aviation airports. Those are our non-commercial airports. So like the Henderson Executive Airport, the North Las Vegas Airport, Overton and Jean. And so we have these great airport systems that allow all of our guests and visitors come into Vegas. And the fun thing about it is I manage all of the technology that surrounds the passenger experience and the airline airport relationship. So I make sure that the planes are able to come in and the planes are able to go out, that our guests have a easy and seamless experience while they’re at the airport. But my team, which is a fabulous team, I couldn’t do, in fact, I don’t do much. They do all the hard work. And I appreciate them so much for that because I have such a smart and dedicated team. But we manage over 60 systems that pull the guests from the curb to the gate and the gate to the curb. So everything, once you walk into the airport, actually, even on the roadway into the airport, is somehow managed or has a technical component which we have to maintain, support, and do all the good things for. So it’s a really large job. My job is really starting to focus around the strategic implementation of technology because you might have heard we’re gonna actually open a second commercial airport, the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport. It’s gonna be 20 miles south of us. But it’s actually gonna be an extension of the Harry Reid International Airport. So right now we have Terminal 1, D-Gates, and Terminal 3. We’re going to rename Terminal 3 into Terminal 2, and then down south of us will be Terminal 3. So just by that naming convention, we can see that we’re gonna have one very large airport system just in two very distinct locations, making it a very unique makeup of an airport. And so in order for us to get there, we are going to start using our commercial airport, the Harry Reid International Airport, as an innovative test bed for a lot of the solution building we wanna do once we come across that very unique setup that we’re gonna have in about 10 to 12-ish years. And so that’s very exciting. Manuel: That is, and again, I think that’s one of the great things that I enjoy about this is, even though I think I have an idea of kind of what your role is, and each guest will kind of give us additional information. Like me being a local to Las Vegas was not aware that you are in charge of, or that they oversee and they’re all connected all these different airports. Rishma: Right Manuel: And then this one, it’s not gonna be a different airport, it’s gonna be an extension. So I’m sure there’s, it’s gonna be easy, right? There’s no challenges with something 20 miles away. (both laughing) Fantastic. So now, if you wouldn’t mind, what I’d like to do is kind of get to know a little bit more about you and just what, kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you interested in technology and eventually got you started in your career. Manuel: Sure, so it’s kind of a long story. This is my ninth city. I come from a family of migrants. And so I think just travel and finding home is in our blood, and finding home is really where the love is, not necessarily where the house is, right? So my parents are from East Africa. They traversed over the ocean, landed in Canada, and actually met in Canada, got married there. And then, coming from East Africa, my mom being from Uganda, my dad being from Tanzania, the landscape is very different than it is in Canada, right? So they go through their first winter and they’re like, “Where in the hell am I?” Right? After a few years, my dad had an opportunity to kind of engage in some business ventures with his brothers, and they traveled south from Calgary, came into the States, reached Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was like, “Okay, this is somewhat reminiscent of home.” And that’s where we all moved. So I grew up in a community of about 150 to 200 people that are either centered around us through familiar relationships or through generational relationships, right? So these are people that my dad or my mom or my uncles have known, previous generation, like their parents knew each other, their grandparents, right? It’s like this whole thing. So I come from a very networked community. But with that also came opportunities for my dad and my mom to kind of venture out and see what else was available. And so in this cooperation with his brothers, right, we moved to different cities, looking for the right mix of work and family life. My parents, workaholics, but I mean, if you think about it, those immigrants that come in are always looking for the better opportunities for their children, not necessarily themselves, right? So they center themselves around being very, very strong workhorses, if I can use that term, but my parents worked their butts off. And so we moved a lot. And then once I graduated from college, I had already been to four or five cities by then, but then I moved to New York City all on my own, got a job at IBM, 9-11 happened, moved back to Albuquerque. And then from there, just started building my career a little bit more and more and more, got a job in Reno, so moved to Reno, then to San Francisco and out here. So nine cities later, I’ve figured out some of what I want to do with my life. I don’t think I’ll ever figure out where that pinnacle will be, but it’s been an adventure nonetheless. I don’t see challenges as negatives. They’re opportunities where you can either figure out which direction you wanna go in, a big propo...

Episode Information Show Notes Episode Overview Angie Cosca’s career journey challenges every assumption about traditional tech career paths. Starting with no formal computer science education, she taught herself HTML using Notepad, worked her way up through help desk support, and eventually became CIO of a major healthcare organization – all while staying with the same company for 23 years. Her story demonstrates the power of curiosity, relationship-building, and continuous learning in creating a successful technology career. Key Takeaways On Career Development: Formal education isn’t required for tech success, but continuous learning is non-negotiable Taking on responsibilities beyond your job description opens unexpected opportunities Building relationships across the organization matters as much as technical skills On Leadership: Understanding business workflows and pain points enables better technology solutions Collaborative hiring processes involving other departments improve team dynamics Second opinions and diverse perspectives strengthen decision-making On Healthcare IT: Technology professionals in healthcare indirectly save lives by ensuring reliable systems Vendor relationships should be partnerships, not just transactions AI implementation requires careful change management to avoid employee fear Guest Background Angie Cosca serves as Chief Information Officer at Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging (SDMI), where she oversees IT infrastructure, compliance, and security for 12 locations serving 550+ employees. The organization processes approximately 500,000 diagnostic studies annually, including MRIs, CTs, X-rays, and ultrasounds. Beyond her corporate role, Angie is President of ISSA Las Vegas and dedicates extensive time to mentoring through IT Works, a 16-week intensive program helping disadvantaged students transition into technology careers. Resources Mentioned IT Works: 16-week intensive IT program for disadvantaged students ISSA Las Vegas: Information Systems Security Association chapter PACS: Picture Archival Communication System for medical imaging UNLV Negotiation Course: Referenced for professional development Episode Highlights The Power of Curiosity: How asking “why” and observing workflows leads to better solutions Vendor Partnership Strategy: Building relationships beyond transactional interactions Mentorship Impact: The long-term relationships formed through programs like IT Works Healthcare Technology: Understanding the life-saving implications of reliable IT systems Connect with Angie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeline-cosca/ ISSA Las Vegas: https://www.lvissa.org/ TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for today’s episode because I have with me Angie Cosca, and she is a CIO here in, for the medical industry within Las Vegas. So again, I’m very excited to kind of understand her journey, where she kind of started and eventually how she ended up in her role. So with that, I’ll introduce Angie. Hi Angie. Angie Cosca: Hi, thank you for having me, Manuel. Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on and being open to kind of sharing your experiences. Angie Cosca: I’m excited. Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind, can you just kind of tell us what your current role is and just some of the roles and responsibilities that you fulfill on a daily basis for the most part? Angie Cosca: Sure. So I am currently the Chief Information Officer for Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging. For some of the audiences that know what this is, it’s a radiology center. We have 12 locations here, and we handle about half a million studies a year. And the studies are your MRIs, your CTs, your X-rays, ultrasounds, a whole gamut of diagnostic images itself. So, and we also have over 550 employees as well. We have here with 12 locations. My main responsibilities really is the IT infrastructure, compliance and security. So as you can tell, I fight every day because you have operations and security, but I do manage the servers, the networks, computers, even the applications, we support all of that. At the same time, we also make sure that we are complying with PCI, HIPAA, and then security as well. I am also in charge of the physical security of the organization as well. Yeah, so a lot. Manuel Martinez: Yes, it sounds like it keeps you busy. Angie Cosca: It does, it does, yeah. Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind now, kind of tell me a little bit about kind of where you grew up and then eventually what got you kind of interested or involved in technology. Angie Cosca: Yeah, so I was born in the Philippines, but I grew up in Guam. So I’m not sure if you know where Guam is. It’s a little island of nowhere, pretty much, yeah. But for the most part, that’s where I grew up, all the way up through my early adulthood there. But I didn’t get into computers until college, which is the early 90s. I am completely aging myself now. Manuel Martinez: We’re around the same age, so don’t worry about it. Angie Cosca: Okay, so in the early 90s, I went into college during the freshman year. I wasn’t really touching computers until I was required to do it for word processing and stuff like that. But I wasn’t really interested in computers until the internet boomed at that time in Guam. The fact that you can go to the library and search the national libraries in the United States instead of just what’s in Guam, that was amazing because there’s so much information now that you can get. And then I think the IRC also boomed at that time. So just being in the middle of nowhere and being able to talk to people in the US or internationally, I was talking to people from the Netherlands and Spain. That was just very intriguing to me at that time. And I knew at that time when the internet boomed, it was like computers, the way to go. So I learned everything about computers then. I started building my own BBBs, playing Doom. Those are like my favorite past times is playing Doom with my friends. And instead of being on the phone for hours, I’m on the computer for hours, either it’s IRC or playing Doom and stuff like that. So that’s how my career started or at least how it piqued my interest in IT. I don’t remember how I met my previous boss then, but I was offered a job to do a website for Guam. It was a really huge website. We’ve never really had websites and because the internet just started. So it was a website for a huge telecommunications company. It’s similar to what AT&T is here to Guam. So it’s what everybody uses them for cell phones, telephones and all those services and stuff like that. So I was part of that team that actually built this website. So I learned how to code. I had to look at HTML coding, just looking at all the websites. Then they’re all basic websites that I’m researching, but I learned how to do everything through Notepad. Not fun. Manuel Martinez: No. Angie Cosca: But I knew I wanted to do some kind of web design work. So I went ahead and accepted the job. So I did my research, looked at every websites and just figured it out myself. Okay, how do you do websites? Okay, you need to do the heading here, blah, blah, blah. You need to have to do images here. And then I also decided, okay, I need to do graphic design too. If we’re gonna do a website, we’re gonna have to have good graphics. So I learned graphics myself too. All of these are self-taught. They didn’t really have really good books or online books at that time. So I taught myself that. I started sitting down with graphic students at the college at that time, the university in Guam. I sat down with them and I said, show me how to do some things. How do you blur this? How do you make this better, bigger? So I did all that and learned it all myself with Photoshop. Photoshop was easier then. Manuel Martinez: Right. Angie Cosca: Yeah. Manuel Martinez: It wasn’t so complicated back then. Angie Cosca: No, not like now. Yeah, but so yeah, it’s really self-taught because there’s not much resources then. But I loved it and I knew it was for me after I realized that I spent three days, no sleep, and I just wanted to get things done. And I was so happy to see the fruits of my labor after that. So that’s what got me into computers for sure, yeah. Manuel Martinez: And when you were in college, what did you think you were gonna study at the time? Angie Cosca: Oh, I was one of the students that had no idea what we were gonna do. Manuel Martinez: Okay. Angie Cosca: Yeah, as a Filipina, my mom always thinks I’m gonna be a doctor or a nurse. Manuel Martinez: Right. Angie Cosca: I hated biology. Manuel Martinez: You’re like this is not for me. Angie Cosca: It wasn’t for me, but that was like the standard for Filipinos there. You have to be either, but I knew it wasn’t what my future would be. So I just like, okay, I’m...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode, Manuel Martinez interviews Dr. Doreen Galli, Chief of Research at TBW Advisors, about her remarkable career journey through the technology industry. Dr. Galli shares candid insights about her path from academic overachiever to holding senior executive roles at companies like IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, and DHL. Guest Background: Dr. Doreen Galli is currently Chief of Research at TBW Advisors, a media company and industry analyst firm. She has held CIO and CTO positions at Fortune 10 companies and was a platform architect for Microsoft Azure. Her career spans operations, consulting, and advisory roles across multiple industries including telecommunications, logistics, and cloud computing. Episode Highlights: Dr. Galli opens up about completing a triple major in college while being an All-American athlete and working multiple tutoring jobs. She explains how she convinced her registrar to allow course overloads by presenting a detailed plan and backup strategies. The conversation covers her time as the first postdoc at IBM’s Center for Advanced Studies, where she worked alongside technology legends like Paul Larson (father of SQL) and learned to navigate complex technical integrations under extreme pressure. She shares practical strategies for time management, including Benjamin Franklin’s time blocking method that she still uses today. Dr. Galli explains how scheduling everything – including relaxation time – creates more flexibility rather than rigidity. The discussion reveals the realities of working in technology, including how to handle the inevitable layoffs and reorganizations that come with change management roles. Dr. Galli emphasizes that business decisions aren’t personal and shares strategies for protecting your professional brand. Key Takeaways: Don’t accept other people’s limitations on your capabilities “Who knows what you know” matters more than who you know Make requests easy for people to approve by doing the planning work upfront Maintain interests outside of work to balance the ups and downs of corporate life Influence comes from listening and understanding different perspectives on the same problem Resources Mentioned: Benjamin Franklin’s time blocking methodology The movie “Short Circuit” as inspiration for continuous learning The importance of having non-work activities for emotional balance This episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to advance their technology career, handle workplace challenges professionally, or develop stronger leadership and communication skills. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career and the way that they’ve been able to manage it over time, to really uncover any lessons or ideas that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I’m pretty excited. I have with me Dr. Doreen Galli. We met at Toastmasters and the conversation has gone well. She had talked a little bit about some of the work that she has done, looked at her profile on LinkedIn. It’s very extensive. We’ve had some conversations since then. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to cover everything she’s done, but there are gonna be a lot of key lessons just in the short time that we’ve talked that I think are gonna be really insightful and important to cover. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Dr. Doreen. Doreen Galli: Hi, nice to see you. How are you doing? Manuel Martinez: I’m doing fantastic. Thanks for asking. How about yourself? Doreen Galli: Good, thanks for having me. Looking forward, hope it’ll help some people. Manuel Martinez: And that’s ultimately the goal. So if you don’t mind, just as we get started, if you can just tell us what your current role is and just a summary of the roles and responsibilities and then we’ll kind of get in more depth later on. Doreen Galli: Okay, sure. I’m the chief of research at TBW Advisors. It’s a media company, member of the press and industry analyst. We publish conference whispers and whisper reports along with some other document types as well, but those are the heavy ones we drive out of conferences here in Vegas. The exciting part is there’s many aspects to it. So one is, yes, I’m at the conferences and acting as a member of the press as well as a photojournalist. So I have my camera. I take full video of anything and everything I can and I see and I analyze that and that’s a whole video as well as a document and ask people questions based upon things that people wanna know from the experts at the conference. The other side of it is being an actual expert in technology is when I get to advise people. So it’s different than consulting. It’s more like, you know how you went to college and when you were writing your English paper and you’re like, okay, I gotta keep this GPA up. So I’m gonna stop by the English lab. They’re very good at this stuff. Let me just bounce it off of them, get their sanity check on it. They almost always gave you one or two points that just made it that much better, right? But then what happens when you get to the professional world, right? You’re head of data engineering at your company who around is more knowledgeable about data that you can say, can you give me a sanity check on this? I can’t know everything. I’m busy with my head down in all of this. I have no time to pick up my head to go to talk to all these people and go to all these events and find out about the newest, flashiest things that are going on. The difference is a lot of the big firms and one of which I was trained at, when they are helping people that do the same type of thing when they give advice is they’ve never been there. So like Stephen A. Smith at NAB on stage talked about how he’s the highest paid sports analyst, right? So instead of analyzing tech, he analyzes sports who was never a pro athlete. And that’s like a big thing because if you haven’t been there, done that. But what about technology? Isn’t it the same? Why are all these English majors helping these engineers? Their advice is very similar to chat GPT. It’s never had a team of a few thousand engineers. It’s never designed software. It’s never used an architecture, realized it, lived with it. It’s never done any of those things. And all of that context comes through in their advice. And that’s actually why I left one of the big firms is they were giving advice that was absolutely terrible. I would give them recordings of when people listened to the advice from someone who’s not been there because a vendor suggested it. And then I would tell them what happened and give them the recordings. It’s very common analysts record all of our insights because we’ll listen to it to pick up more nuances, how we can help the person next time. And they didn’t change their advice. This looked like giving the poor advice to people. So from my personal brain’s perspective, yeah, that’s something you always got to protect. No matter what it is, you got to protect your brand. Even in tough environments, you have to find a way to execute and deliver, have something when someone says, “What did you do when you were there?” Then you can say, “I did this.” Ideally, something they can figure out from the outside. So you would say, “This was before and this was after. Remember when this company made this change? Like at Microsoft, remember they had pair of regions. Now they have a data boundary. How did that happen? I designed it.” Manuel Martinez: And that’s good to know that a lot of kind of what you’re doing, which is, I mean, I’m excited to get to that point. I know you and I have talked a little bit offline about it. So that’s going to be a fantastic conversation I have around that. So now I’m going to ask you if you don’t mind, kind of tell me a little bit more about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what led you down the path towards technology. Doreen Galli: Yeah, absolutely. So I was a kid in the Chicago Verbs. Youngest of five grew up predominantly most to my childhood. We lived in a three bedroom apartment with seven people. All five of us had one bathroom. I had a lot of influence from my siblings in many ways in terms of I could read and write before I started kindergarten. And I became an All American Runner because I ran with my brother who was in high school when I was in second grade. So that had a lot of effect on me, but fundamentally, and my entry school was pretty much a waste of time. I was at an eighth grade level in second grade, but it was a private school. So they wanted to get all that tuition from my family all those years. And they wouldn’t double promote me. So I did a lot of sports. Manuel Martinez: Interesting. Yeah. To kind of keep you busy and entertained. Doreen Galli: So I had something in life that was interesting. Yeah, I read every book in the library more than two times in my elementary school. So there was like, I was trying to gobble up information like I do now with the conferences, but there was just only so much information to gobble. So, but there are sports at least. Manuel Martinez: So, and that kind of leads into the question of, all right, so obviously it came easy for you at least elementary school. You know, you’re doing sports to kind of keep yourself entertained when eventually you did move on into assuming higher level courses or classes even. Is that something that, was it welcome because of the fact that, oh, now th...

Episode Information Show Notes Clinton Lee’s career journey reads like a masterclass in adaptability. What started as dreams of becoming a teacher transformed into a successful path through IT infrastructure, customer-side technical roles, and ultimately sales engineering leadership. Currently serving as a Director of Sales Engineering, Clinton shares the pivotal moments that shaped his career, from his first encounter with VMware technology to learning how to overcome introversion in customer-facing roles. Episode Highlights: Early Career Foundation Clinton’s path began at a technical certification school where he learned Windows, Cisco networking, and foundational IT skills. His willingness to take on any challenge—from teaching classes to running cable—set the stage for future growth. The VMware Turning Point Working at Toyota, Clinton witnessed his first vMotion demonstration while servers were being pinged. That “magical” moment sparked a passion for virtualization technology that would define his career trajectory. Transitioning to Sales Engineering Despite initial reservations about sales roles, Clinton made the leap to VMware as a vSAN specialist. He candidly discusses the challenges of being an introvert in a customer-facing position and how he developed the energy and presence needed for success. Leadership Lessons From individual contributor to team manager, Clinton shares insights about developing people, the importance of genuine relationships, and why helping others succeed became his driving motivation. Key Takeaways for Listeners: Technical expertise alone isn’t enough—learn to solve business problems Network authentically and build genuine relationships Great mentors can change your career trajectory Feedback is a gift—always ask for it and act on it Leadership skills can be developed with intention and practice Guest Bio: Clinton Lee is a Director of Sales Engineering with extensive experience in virtualization technologies and team leadership. His career spans customer-side IT infrastructure, technical consulting, and vendor-side sales engineering across multiple industries. Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career and their experiences, to really understand what they’ve done to be able to kind of manage that career over time. So I’m pretty excited about my guest today. I have Clinton Lee. So he, I know I’ve talked about this in the past, about me working at VMware. He is a big part of kind of how that happened. So, you know, we’ll touch on that, ask him a couple of questions and, you know, get to learn more about his specific career path. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Clinton. Clinton: Hey Manuel: How’s it going? Clinton: It’s awesome, it’s awesome to finally be on here, Manny. Manuel: It’s been a while, so I know we kind of touched base a few times, you know, outside of the podcast. So I was pretty excited to, you know, have you on, talk about your journey and then just kind of that intersection of how we, you know, came across each other. Clinton: Yeah, I’m super excited to do it for sure. Manuel: So if you don’t mind, kind of tell us what your current role is and just a brief summary of some of your roles and responsibilities. And then eventually we’ll kind of work our way towards that. Clinton: Yeah, so I mean, you’re, I mean, this is probably not going to be anything new for you or maybe some of your listeners, but I’m a director of sales engineering. So I manage SEs, you know, they’re called solution engineers, systems engineer, sales engineers, like all kinds of names for what’s basically the same function, which is the technical, you know, in the weeds counterpart to your salesperson at a tech company. Manuel: And now if you can kind of tell us, you know, where you grew up and then kind of what was your first introduction into technology and then, you know, kind of work us towards your, you know, eventually career path. Clinton: Yeah, so I’m born and raised in Southern California, like all around Southern California. Some people identify as like, I’m from this area. I’m from that area. I’m from all the areas. (laughing) My parents moved a lot, fortunately and unfortunately, from a very young age, I moved around a lot. And then, you know, it’s funny, I’ve seen people answer this question about technology, how they got into it, and they have these like really cool stories about like all this stuff that, where they, you know, they did this or they did that. I don’t have any of that, but I was a latchkey kid growing up, so I watched a lot of TV, I played a lot of video games, and those are the things I cared about. I watched a lot of movies and cartoons and whatever. Those are the things I cared about. And, you know, as I got older, and, you know, the internet started becoming more of a thing, and I just was like getting access to those things that were interesting to me, but doing them like online was what I wanted to do, right? So, you know, like I said, I played a bunch of video games. I grew up in the 80s, like Nintendo kid, and just like, I remember the first time I played like a game online, I was like, wow, this is like the future of gaming. And so I got to college, and I mean, I grew up, we had dial-up, right? I mean, we had like put the phone on the modem dial-up, you know what I mean? I don’t know if you remember that, that makes me feel old. And I got to college, and it was the first time I saw broadband, right? It was the first time I saw high-speed internet. Like I plugged my computer into the dorm. I didn’t even have an ethernet card yet. Like I still had the, I feel, there’s gonna be young people who listen to this, and they’re gonna be like, what is this guy even talking about, right? But like, I had to go to like Fry’s and buy the ethernet card, because my computer didn’t have one, because we didn’t have high-speed. So I had to buy one just so I can get onto the LAN at my dorm, and it like changed everything, right? Like ESPN, I don’t know, actually ESPN didn’t exist then, ESPN.com didn’t exist then, but like different message boards or whatever that at home would like load like super slow. Yeah. Like, you know, I got to college and it was like, boom, like those things would load like so fast. And I’m like, that’s what I wanna do. So yeah, I went and I started trying to figure out like, how do I do this? Like, what is this, number one? And you find out, oh, like that’s networking, like cool, I wanna do networking. How do I do it? And then I immediately found out like, not at my college. In fact, I was encouraged to like drop out or go to a different school, right? They didn’t have M.I.S. majors, they didn’t have anything like that. Manuel: And at that college, so what was your original intention to go to school for? If you remember. Clinton: I mean, I went, I started as an engineering major. Manuel: Okay. Clinton: So I graduated with an electrical engineering degree, but I went to college because I had to go to college. So I didn’t have a choice. And when I got there, I was like, well, and people, like I was always good at math and science when I was a little younger, maybe like sophomore, junior in high school, I wanted to be a teacher. And my parents were like, no. (laughing) My parents immigrated to this country a year before I was born and they just worked. Like I mentioned, I was a Latchkey kid, they were working all the time. And so when it came to like sending their kid, they didn’t have college degrees or anything like that, sending their kid to college, it was like a big thing. And so, very kind of stereotypical Asian parents, they were just like, no, like you’re not gonna be a teacher. We’re not spending all this money to send you to college to be a teacher or like, you gotta go do something that makes a lot of money. And so I was good at math, I was good at science. So I was like, I’ll do engineering. Manuel: And you said that you eventually ended up completing that degree. And as part of that process, did you kind of start to do internships? Some people did internships, some people like me waited until they graduated and then decided, okay, I’m gonna start looking for jobs. Clinton: Yeah, so once I found out that they really didn’t have any kind of major at my college, right? So there was no MIS at my school. And so I kind of resigned myself to be like, okay, I guess I’m just gonna be an engineer. What’s the closest thing to networking that we have at this school at UCLA? And they’re like, well, you know, you can do computer science. And I was like, I’m not doing computer science. It’s not who I am. And they were like, well, like in electrical engineering, they talk about like signals and signal processing and stuff like that. And so I was like, okay, I’ll go look into that. That’s how I switched from originally I was an aerospace engineer. And I was thinking about going to civil engineering, ended up in electrical because I thought that’s the closest, that’s gonna be my path to getting into networking. And so my internships were all electrical engineering internships, right? And I did manage to get one with, at the time it was McDonald Douglas, but it became Boeing, where like part of the internship was around like an internet working lab. Like that was really exciting to me. And like literally it was like two days of my summer internship. And so that didn’t work out. But it did make me realize like, I can’t do this for my career. Like I can’t do it, right? It just not what didn’t fit what I wanted to do. And so the i...

Episode Information Show Notes Jeramie Brown’s career journey proves there’s no single path to technology leadership success. Starting as a radio and television broadcaster in the Air Force, Jeramie spent 24 years learning storytelling, communication, and adaptability while gradually building technical expertise. Today, he serves as Chief Information Officer for a Nevada public agency and President of the Las Vegas AITP chapter. Episode Summary This conversation explores how diverse backgrounds create stronger tech leaders. Jeramie shares his transition from analog broadcasting to digital technology, the leadership lessons learned through military service, and practical strategies for embracing change in fast-moving tech environments. Key Discussion Points Career Transition Strategy: How Jeramie deliberately started at entry-level after military retirement to build confidence and prove his technical abilities Change Management Philosophy: Finding excitement within scary changes to make adaptation easier Leadership Evolution: Moving from technical contributor to strategic leader who develops others Trust Building: Why owning mistakes publicly strengthens team dynamics Professional Networks: How organizations like AITP, ISSA, and SIM accelerate career growth Notable Quotes “Artificial intelligence is not a replacement for you or for anybody, it is an augmentation tool. It will help you do your job or do that task better, faster, more reliable.” “I wanted to be the guy that they could go to and ask questions and I can help guide them to the right answers.” “You have to find a way to convey the information in a story, right? Because that’s what people are gonna connect to.” Resources Mentioned Book: “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni Organizations: AITP, ISSA, SIM, Thrive, PMI Leadership Authors: Simon Sinek Career Advice Highlights Embrace Non-Traditional Paths – Diverse backgrounds bring valuable perspectives to technology roles Focus on Skill Development – Technical skills plus communication abilities create powerful combinations Join Professional Associations – These organizations provide networking, mentorship, and growth opportunities Lead Through Service – Great leaders develop their teams rather than showcasing personal expertise Build Trust Through Transparency – Admitting mistakes encourages team honesty and collaboration Connect with Jeramie LinkedIn: Jeramie Brown, CIO Professional Association: AITP Las Vegas Chapter Career Downloads explores diverse paths to technology success. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and visit our website for full episode transcripts and resources. #CareerDownloads #TechnologyCareers #ITLeadership #CareerAdvice Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest, to learn more about their background, their experiences, to really uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jeramie Brown and I’m very excited, we met in a professional setting. He is in senior leadership, so I’m very excited to kind of uncover his path to that type of role and kind of what he’s learned along the way. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Jeramie. Hi Jeramie. Jeramie: Hi Manuel. Manuel: I appreciate you taking the time to come on and share your experiences. Jeramie: Oh, I’m super excited to be here. I love things like this, like getting the opportunity to help people grow in their career and kind of figure out where they wanna go and like where they are now, where they wanna be and how to get there. Manuel: Fantastic. This is the perfect place to do that. (both laughing) So if you don’t mind kind of telling us what your current role and responsibilities are, just a summary and we’ll eventually work that way as part of the conversation. Jeramie: Sure. So I’m the chief of information technology in a public sector agency. And so what that really means is I drive the strategic direction for technology within my organization. I help different business units or divisions determine what their technology needs are gonna be. Like where are they right now? What are they looking at in the future? Help guide them along that path to develop a five year plan. Like where do they wanna be five years from now? What does that look like in their space? And every division is different, right? HR is gonna be different than financial management, which is gonna be different from a construction division or a design division. Like people that are designing buildings or highways or whatever, like their needs are gonna be different than the rest of the organization. So helping them to identify those needs and develop a plan to get from where they are now to where they wanna be, especially with the sheer speed at which technology is changing now, right? Trying to predict where they’re gonna be five years from now really takes some thought and some, no kidding, planning on how do we get to, how are we gonna incorporate these new tools into our existing processes? Because we have to. The companies that are producing software packages and anything really, they’re looking at how are we gonna embed AI into this tool? What benefit is it gonna provide to the customer? And so we need to start looking at those things now. And so that’s my goal is to, like that’s kind of my responsibilities. Of course we keep the lights on, we provide support for end user devices, phones, computers, laptops, all of that. And we have those plans, we still maintain servers and we do all of the IT stuff, right? But we do more than that, right? IT now is very much not only keeping the lights on but helping the organization plan for where their technology is gonna be in the future. So that’s kind of my responsibilities. Manuel: Sounds like you don’t do too much, right? (both laughing) So now if you kind of take us a little bit farther back and kind of tell me where you grew up and eventually what was your first introduction to technology and kind of your career progression as that progressed. Jeramie: So I grew up in a very small town in central Illinois. It’s called Williamsville. It’s about 10 miles north of Springfield, about four hours south of Chicago. Very small farming community, a thousand people, right? Growing up, Williamsville and a town next to us called Sherman combined in junior high and high school. My graduating class in high school was 76 people. So small. But my introduction to technology actually started in that small town. I was born in the 70s. Growing up in the 70s and early 80s, the first VCRs came out, right? And so learning to program that VCR, you have the joke about, my parents couldn’t program a VCR. My parents couldn’t program a VCR, right? That was brand new technology. And so learning how to do that really sparked that interest in technology. And then when I was in high school, we had a very small high school, right? But we had a computer class with Apple IIEs. And so I learned basic programming as a junior in high school on Apple IIEs. And it really excited me. Looking back, I always thought for years, I was a good student. And then when I started going to college, I had to pull my high school transcripts. And I was like, huh, maybe I wasn’t such a great student in high school. I should have focused more. But my computer classes, rock solid. Computers just make sense to me, right? Technology just makes sense to me. So it really got me excited. And unfortunately, I didn’t go into a technology career right away. I actually joined the Air Force when I was 18 or 17. I joined delayed enlistment. Went to basic training at 18. And I became a radio and television broadcaster. Like I was a broadcast journalist for 24 years. That’s what I did. But the interesting thing about that was, when I first started, everything was analog. So our audio was analog. It was reel to reel tapes. And I like, I had no kidding, would rock those reels back and forth to find a splice point, take a razor, cut the tape, find another splice point, take the razor, cut the tape, or cut the tape, and then tape it all together, right? And edit that way. That’s how we edited audio. And TV, it was all analog TV. We used Betamax. And like we had two machines, and you would set your in and out points, and it was all analog. And you’d record from one tape to another. And then those processes started changing. And we started introducing digital editing, right? The first digital editing I did was in audio. And we used a Mac computer. I don’t remember what the software was now. It was like, this was like in the early 90s. But we started editing on digital formats and learning how to do that. And all of the technology that’s associated with it, like it led to that. And then TV or video started adapting to that as well. And we moved from analog tapes to digital audio tapes or digital video tapes. But we’d still edit in an analog fashion. And then we started recording to computer, right? And you’d take your video and you’d dump it into the computer and then you’d edit that way. And then that moved into recording on the camera, onto a hard drive. And so you would just start editing directly on those. And so learning that technology along the way, and all of the backbone stuff for it, we had to, like nobody knew how to run those networks for audio and video editing. So we had to do it ourselves. We had some engineers that took care of that. And those of us that were broadcas...

Episode Information Show Notes What does it take to go from a curious kid tinkering with an Apple IIe computer to leading cybersecurity at a major university? Vito Rocco’s journey offers a masterclass in career development, strategic thinking, and the power of continuous learning. Currently serving as Chief Information Security Officer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Vito brings a unique perspective shaped by small-town Pennsylvania roots, military service, and the challenging world of higher education cybersecurity. His story demonstrates how curiosity, adaptability, and strong communication skills can transform a career trajectory. Episode Highlights: The Foundation Years: Discover how summer access to his teacher-father’s Apple IIe computer sparked a lifelong passion for technology, leading to building computers in high school and becoming the go-to tech person among peers. Military Transformation: Learn why Vito chose military service over traditional college, his initial role in artillery, and the strategic decision to reclassify into cybersecurity during the field’s early expansion. Skills Development: Understand the value of military training programs, the importance of certifications, and how hands-on experience with different cybersecurity domains shaped his expertise. Higher Education Challenges: Get insider perspective on the unique security challenges universities face, balancing academic freedom with protection, and why traditional corporate security approaches don’t always work in educational settings. Leadership Evolution: Explore the transition from technical expert to organizational leader, including the communication skills required to influence without authority and build support for security initiatives. Career Advice: Gain practical insights on the importance of IT fundamentals, the value of professional networking, and why understanding business context is essential for cybersecurity success. Vito’s journey illustrates that there’s no single path to cybersecurity leadership. Whether you’re starting in military service, traditional IT roles, or considering a career change, this conversation provides actionable insights for building expertise and advancing your career in the rapidly expanding cybersecurity field. TranscriptionManuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experiences, and really what got them interested in technology and how they managed to navigate their career over time. For today’s episode, I have with me Vito Rocco. So I’m pretty excited about this one. So he is a CISO for UNLV and we’ll get into that conversation but a lot of his background, just the way that he navigated and eventually got into that type of role, I think is very interesting. So I’m looking forward to this conversation. And with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Vito. How’s it going? Vito: Great, thanks for having me. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and being able to share your experiences. Vito: Yeah, absolutely. I’m glad to be here. Manuel: So if you don’t mind, just kind of summarize for us and kind of give us some of your background is kind of where you grew up. And then we’ll kind of follow that story into what got you into technology. Vito: So I grew up in Pennsylvania, little town north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I’m the oldest of six kids. I have five brothers and sisters. And so grew up in a big family. And I sort of always had an interest in technology growing up. These were the days before every household had a computer. But my dad was a teacher. And so he had a computer in his classroom and every summer he got to bring home the computer. And so we had this, it was an Apple IIe computer that was sort of my first intro to technology or IT. And every summer we got to spend a lot of time, mostly playing games, but also I learned a little bit of BASIC, the coding language BASIC on there. And just a little bit about general, in general how to use a computer and how to navigate file systems and things like that, using the five and a quarter inch floppy disks. (both laughing) Yeah. Yeah, so that was kind of my start into it. And we had that computer every summer and my brothers and sisters and I spent a lot of hours on that sort of navigating it. Manuel: And it’s funny because it probably at that time, it’s something fun, it’s something new, but especially at that time with computers being new, it wasn’t really like, oh, there’s a career in this. So it’s just, you’re just curious and you’re learning that. And I’m sure at some point you’re also, because it sounds, I remember my kind of first experiences with computers too when I got to school, like I remember the Oregon Trail. So like, you had the computer class and you were doing a lot of that. Vito: Absolutely. Manuel: It wasn’t a career, but you enjoyed that. And then, that was your first introduction. What kind of transpired from there? Vito: Yeah, so I mean, I continued to want to learn about it. Like you said, at the time, I wasn’t really thinking of it as a career field or something to do for a living, but it was something that intrigued me and interests me. And so, I wanted to get more into it. And so, using and learning more about the computers. And like, it’s funny you mentioned the Oregon Trail. I just said, I said the other day to my wife, look, you weren’t a kid in the eighties if you didn’t die of dysentery at least once, right? We all died of dysentery at least once. But yeah, things like that were, sort of held my interest around it. And I, maybe I didn’t even realize at the time that I was sort of learning about technology at the same time while playing these entertaining games and these interesting games. And so, from there, as I got older, I sort of kept that interest and that want to learn more about technology. And I started building my own computers in high school, the early days of high school. And I sort of became the tech guy that people would come to and ask questions like, oh, we don’t know how to do this on the computer. Let’s ask Vito about it. And that sort of thing. So I sort of evolved and just kept being intrigued by technology and by computers and kept learning more and more from there. Manuel: And the need or the want to kind of build computers, was it, did you, I’ve had different people give me different stories. Was it, I wanted something better and faster? Was it really, I just want to see how this works? Vito: Yeah, it was more the latter for me. Like I want to know how it works, how all the pieces go together, how these things interact with each other. Sort of that like MacGyver mindset. You’ve watched the TV show MacGyver probably, you’re about the same generation as me. So knowing the science behind things and how things work and how you can put different things together to do something that maybe they weren’t intended to do. But I had that same intrigue with computers, like how do all these parts work together? How do I put them together and get them to work the way I want them to work? Manuel: Obviously just curiosity is helping build this. You’re continuing to go to school at some point. Like you said, we’re probably around the same generation. At one point, it almost starts to become kind of a requirement. Probably around high school time, like you have to, they want your papers typed. So you’ve got to print them out and do a lot of that. What did you think, at least around the high school age, what did you think that you were gonna do? Because again, technology was not it. This is a tool, it’s a fun thing to do. You’re curious, but what did you think was gonna happen? Vito: Yeah, at that point in my life, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And in the later days of high school, I started looking toward the military, which is where I ended up going eventually. But I didn’t even know then that I would have a career in technology or that I wanted a career in technology. I was thinking about a lot of different career fields in the military and thought about things like the cool jobs that everybody wants to do, special operations or something like that. And I wasn’t really sure how I would make a career out of that military training or service after the military. I wasn’t at the point of even thinking about that yet. But I ended up going into the military and I actually enlisted not in a technical field at all. I enlisted in the field artillery field and I was a forward observer for field artillery for a while. And so I was in there for a couple of years and did some time in that career field and then I had a chance to reclassify. And like I said, this interest I had always had in technology sort of led me to reclassify into a tech field in the military. Manuel: And during that time, that reclassification process, is it, are they posting jobs? I’m vaguely familiar with how it works. A lot of times there’s like contract terms, right? Like your artillery for, let’s say a four year period and then you can reclassify, right? Is it something similar to that? Vito: Yeah, so a lot of it is based on contract terms. A lot of it’s also based on the needs in the military and certain career fields are higher need or they have trouble getting more people for that. Certain career fields, you have to have a certain ASVAB score, which is the test we all take to get into the military. You have to have a certain level of ASVAB score and so it’s harder to get more people into those career...

Episode Information Show Notes What happens when the interviewer becomes the interviewee? In this special episode, John MacGugan flips the script and puts Manuel Martinez in the hot seat to uncover the real story behind Career Downloads. Episode Summary: Manuel gets candid about building a podcast from zero experience – sharing everything from his early days relying on a professional studio (the “production limo” era) to learning the hard way with broken equipment and terrible lighting. You’ll hear about the friendship with Jake Izumi that sparked this whole journey, the Women’s Empowerment Institute mentorship program that provided the inspiration, and why he chose to focus on real people instead of celebrity interviews. This conversation reveals the honest struggles of podcast creation: the learning curve, the costs, the family time sacrificed, and the reality checks that almost ended everything at the six-month mark. Manuel also shares his ambitious plans for taking the show on the road and expanding beyond the tech industry. What You’ll Learn: How a simple mentorship conversation led to 40+ episodes Why free learning materials only get you 75% of the way there The game-changing moment when Manuel invested in professional help How Toastmasters transformed his interviewing approach The real costs (time, money, relationships) of independent podcast production Future plans for multi-city recording and industry expansion Key Topics Discussed: The Jake Izumi origin story and Women’s Empowerment Institute connection Transitioning from professional studio to DIY production Learning lighting, audio, and video editing through trial and error The importance of intentional practice and professional consultation Building genuine relationships with guests across the tech industry Plans for on-location recording and industry diversification Episode Timestamps: [00:00] Introduction and role reversal setup [02:30] The friendship that started it all – Jake Izumi’s influence [05:45] From mentorship challenges to podcast solution [09:15] The “Honda Civic era” – DIY production struggles [13:20] Expectations versus reality after 40+ episodes [17:45] Learning the hard way about audience feedback [21:30] Why investing in professionals made all the difference [25:15] Future vision – expanding industries and locations [29:30] The dream of on-location recording trips [32:45] Call for audience feedback and suggestions [34:00] Closing reflections and what’s next Guest Information: John MacGugan brings his unique perspective as both a longtime listener and professional in the tech industry. His thoughtful questions reveal sides of the podcast creation process that even regular listeners haven’t heard before. Resources Mentioned: Women’s Empowerment Institute mentorship program Toastmasters International Episode 2 featuring Janetta Dunbar (Sony PlayStation) Professional photography and lighting consultation Connect & Continue the Conversation: Have feedback about the show or suggestions for future industries to explore? Manuel reads every comment and is actively planning future seasons based on listener input. Next Episode Preview: The new season launches soon with exciting guests from industries you’ve been requesting. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss these upcoming conversations. Transcription Manuel: So welcome everyone. This is Manuel Martinez with a mini teaser for the Career Downloads podcast. Normally I bring on a different guest, you know, I hit the refresh button, but this time we’re gonna do something a little different. It’s gonna be a big refresh where we’re basically, I have a guest that’s gonna go through and ask me some questions focused around the podcast and kind of how it came about. Cause it’s one of the things that, you know, he realized and has brought to my attention that a lot of people don’t know how this came about. So I thought it’d be a great opportunity to kind of put myself in the hot seat. So with that, I’ll introduce John MacGugan and he can take it from here. John:: Manuel Martinez, how are you doing? Manuel: I’m doing well. John:: So the tables have turned and now I get to ask you the questions. So I asked to be able to come here and do this real quick because I am a huge fan of the Career Downloads podcast. The reason why I’m a big fan of it is because every time I listen to one of your interviews, I learn something. And I don’t just learn something that I don’t know, I learn something that I can actually take and apply to my own career, which I know obviously is the intent of the podcast is to help those in the community. So I wanna learn a little bit more about the podcast itself and I have five burning questions for you. So here’s the first question, a little wordy, but we’ll get to it. So there are millions of podcasts out there and yours is one of them. But this obviously started with an idea that you had. You’re just a guy with a family, living in your house, doing your job. And now you’re doing a podcast at the time of this, 40 plus interviews. And so how did the idea of doing a podcast start with you? Manuel: So the idea came about actually with a good friend of mine. So Jake Izumi, I will make sure that he gets credit for coming up with this, even though I know he’s gonna shy away. But I have been a part-time instructor for about seven years now. And in the last few years, I got into mentorship, formal mentorship programs at the my places of employment. And Jake actually got me introduced to an external one and it’s called the Women’s Empowerment Institute. So what they do is they take women who are re-entering the career field or maybe they’re transitioning, they put them through an AWS bootcamp and then they pair them up with an AWS mentor to help them on, it could be anything from earning a certification to helping them prepare for job interviews, to developing hands-on skills. And in our conversations with our mentees, you know, we run into issues. He had a mentee that he wasn’t sure how to kind of help her in what she was looking for. She had gone through the bootcamp. She was struggling with the, she understood the concepts, but getting that hands-on knowledge, she was struggling. So I had suggested, and if you review episode number two with Janetta Dunbar, she talks about buying a Udemy course, going through it and learning how everything was built and then tweaking it to her liking and that ended up landing her job with Sony PlayStation. So I gave him a condensed version of that, said, “Hey, why don’t you, you know the technology, you know what would work, find her a course that’s 10 bucks to build a basic website, but that has AWS technology on the backend.” He was like, “That’s a great idea. How did you come up with that?” Well, I happen to know part of that story from Janetta. Time goes on, there was another situation and I’ll kind of summarize it here, but same thing. I gave him another piece of advice and he was like, “Man, is that something you did?” I was like, “No, as a matter of fact, my friend, John: did that.” And eventually he said, “You need to find a way to amplify this information.” So we brainstormed, me and him would meet monthly, you know, during our work hours and we tried, well, maybe blogs, maybe writing it down, at some point he said, maybe create a video explaining what you’re telling me, but it didn’t feel right because it’s not my story, right? I didn’t go through those experiences and eventually he came up with the idea and kind of jointly is like, “Well, let’s do a podcast.” And I asked him to join me in building this and he wanted nothing to do with it. So then I was like, “Well, I’m not gonna do this on my own, similar to what you said. There’s a number of podcasts out there. Somebody’s already doing something similar. They have to be.” And I couldn’t find anything. John:: I couldn’t either. Manuel: The ones I did find had CEOs, CIOs, right? Like Mark Cuban. And I felt like the issue there is sometimes people can’t relate. Where as with you and me, like, “Oh, this is just a regular person that is going through their career. This is their experience.” And I wanted to find people in diverse industries, diverse roles, diverse, you know, different stages in their career so that they could go through and there’s gonna be somebody that they identify with, somebody that they resonate with. There’s gonna be a piece of their story that’s gonna say, “Man, that’s, I get that. Oh, they can do it. I can do it as well.” So that’s eventually what led to the idea. And, you know, eventually I slowly started to make it a reality. John:: Look, if you can nail down Mark Cuban for an interview, I would take it. But one of the things that I like about the Career Downloads podcast is that it is normal, real people. It’s their stories. It’s where they started, how they develop their skills, and how they utilize those. So kudos to you because I listen to a lot of podcasts because I travel by vehicle for a living and it’s what I do to pass the time. So again, great. It’s a great idea. And I believe that so far the success has been amazing. My next question for you is about the ride on the podcast. So if you consider the podcast like a car, how was the ride in the car when you started? And how is that ride today? Meaning the road might’ve been bumpy a few places, but so what have you learned and how have you grown? Do you be as specific or as general as you want, but? Manuel: So I’ll say that using that analogy to start off, it was smooth as far as production goes. It was li...

Episode Information Show Notes Why it matters: John MacGugan built a 25-year satellite technology career without a college degree, proving that curiosity and initiative can overcome traditional barriers. The journey: Starting in a phone company mail room in 1989, John worked his way up through voicemail systems, satellite installation, and business ownership before landing at DirecTV as a traveling engineer. Key turning points:– Fixed accounting errors in the mail room, making it profitable for the first time– Missed Amazon stock options in 1997 but learned about diversifying skills– Lost his satellite business in the 2008 housing crash, forcing a move to Texas– Became a LinkedIn content creator during the pandemic What you’ll learn:– How technical skills transfer across different technologies– Why “it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you” for networking– Four principles for sustained career success– How to bounce back from business failures Breaking news: John announces his upcoming book on brand ambassadorship, combining his engineering expertise with content creation experience. Bottom line: John’s story shows how continuous learning, authentic relationships, and calculated risks can build a resilient tech career even without traditional credentials. Guest: John MacGugan, DirecTV Engineer and LinkedIn content creator, based in Kansas City, Missouri Connect: Follow John MacGugan on LinkedIn for satellite technology and professional development insightshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/john-macgugan/ Career Downloads features real stories from technology professionals about career pivots, lessons learned, and practical growth advice. TranscriptionManuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their experiences and their career to help you as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode, I have with me John MacGugan. John and I actually have never worked together. I met him when I was actually purchasing my first motorcycle. He was very knowledgeable, very helpful, so he answered a lot of questions. We spend a lot of time together, just understanding the motorcycle and through that process, we started talking about what we did for a living and eventually connected on LinkedIn and have maintained a relationship over that time. So I’m very excited. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about what he does, but he actually happened to be in town and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to bring him on and have him as a guest. So with that, I’ll introduce John. Johh: Hey, how are you? Manuel: Good. John: I’m excited to be here, thank you. Manuel: And I’m glad that you’re able to come on. We’ve talked about it a little bit before about kind of your experiences. So I knew just a short period of kind of what you’re doing now and what you were doing when I was working together, but I’m excited to kind of go through the whole experience. John: Before I do that, I’ll just say I’m a huge fan of the Career Downloads podcast. I love the interviews and the reason why I like it is because every time I listen to an interview, I learn something. And there are a bunch of podcast style interview shows that are out there in the marketplace where you walk away after an hour or two, you don’t learn anything. And I’m in a place in my life where I wanna learn skills, I wanna learn what other people have done in their lives, take those lessons, apply into my own life, my career, and you have a great platform to do that. So it’s an honor to be here, thank you. Manuel: Thank you, I appreciate it. And I’m glad that even somebody like yourself who’s kind of managed your career and is still finding value out of it. John: Yeah, absolutely. So I work for DirecTV, nine years, about the time this goes live, it’ll be nine years, but I’ve had 25 years in the DBS industry, direct broadcast satellite industry. This is my third stint with DirecTV, but the first as an actual employee, as a contractor for a number of years. My specific job is engineering. I’m an engineer with DirecTV. My core duty is to make sure that local channel contributions to DirecTV are always up and always running in the Midwest of the US. I’ve got 20 designated market areas throughout the Midwest. I’m based out of Kansas City, Missouri, right in the heart of America. And I travel every week of the year. It’s either preventative maintenance, break fix maintenance, channel changes, FCC related work, whatever it takes. I’ve got a great group of guys we’re all spread out around the country and that’s what we do. But I have some deep ties to Las Vegas, even though I’m not here now. And it was interesting driving through today because this is the first time that I’ve been here in 10 years where I’ve actually taken a minute to look back. Come to trade shows, conventions, one here last week, but you’re always looking forward like here at the now. I forget, I lived here for 17 years. And you’re talking about my career, I’m looking back and I’m like, “Oh boy, I had a lot of memories here, a lot of memories.” So it is great to be back for a couple of days. Manuel: That’s awesome. And I’m glad that you kind of had the opportunity to take a moment and just kind of sit there and reflect. I mean, a lot of times we are, we’re go, go, go. Here’s what’s happening in the future. I need to take care of this, but sitting back and saying, “Wow, look at what’s changed.” And like where I’ve come from when I left to coming back now 10 years later. John: It’s not the same Las Vegas I left 10 years ago. So it’s a lot of construction. There’s a NFL stadium over there that wasn’t here last time I was here. Manuel: And a hockey team and pretty soon a baseball team. John: Yep, crazy. Manuel: So now if you don’t mind, just like we do with all the other guests, just kind of give us a little bit of background of kind of where you grew up and then eventually what got you started in, I know that you’re not a directly in technology, like in a traditional sense with most of the guests, but there is that tie-in and you’re more the engineer. So just kind of your background and eventually how you got started in your field. John: I did start in IT actually. I’m born and raised in the Seattle, Washington area, Pacific Northwest, went to public high school there. We did trimesters in Washington state, not semesters. So it was broken up into threes. And by the third trimester of my senior year, I had enough credits to graduate. So I went to college early, went to a small state college, literally right up the street from my high school. So I’d go to high school for an hour or two, then I’d go to college. And I was the youngest person there. I still lived at home. I was still in, if you will, the high school mentality, but I was going to college and it was too soon. I didn’t understand what college was when I originally went there. I didn’t understand principally the core thought of critical thinking, which is a lot of what college is. High school was all about academics. You read a book, you write a book report, they make sure you read the book, you understood it. College was a whole different scenario and I didn’t understand that. So when I graduated from high school, I told my dad, I said, dad, I was all freaked out. I just, I don’t know if I’m gonna make a commitment to do this. I don’t know what I wanna do with my life, but I gotta go find a job. And my father was an officer with the phone company, Pacific Northwest Bell, US West, and it was Quest and now I think it’s Lumen. And he made a call and got me my first job in the mail room of the phone company, Downtown Seattle in the basement. So 18, 19 years old, I got up every morning, moved to Seattle from my hometown, 60 miles away, get up every morning and would go to the mail room and from eight to 10 a.m. we would sort mail. You’re gonna love this. The mail was inner company, 11 by 17 legal manila envelopes with the little tie strap on the end and 18,000 boxes on it. And you put the address and the person in the box and when you get the mail, you scratch it off, then you resend it and you do the next person. We would get all that mail and we would sort it and we’d be done by 10 o’clock in the morning. Because there was nothing else to do in the mail room, it was also the forms distribution warehouse for the phone company. So you think about this, if you want a half day off or you need anything from human resources, you go to Infor, Workday, whatever platform you’re using, you fill it out, you send an email to the boss and you’re done. When I started in the workforce, you had to fill out a form and not just a piece of paper, a three tiered carbon copy form, one for you, one for the boss and one that got mailed in to HR. And there were probably a hundred thousand of these forms that would be needed to just do the daily function of work. In our mail room was a library, but instead of books, it had brown boxes with the fronts missing and little numbers on them in each box were the forms. So we would get mail in the morning and we’d open up the envelope and it would be a form with an order form for more forms. So all the different divisions in 13 states could do their work. So we would spend the day and we would fill out these orders and we’d put them back in the envelope, so scratch it off and mail it out. This is how I got into IT. Before the order went out, you had to give them a receipt. So we had an IBM computer, not on a network, a standalone ...

Episode Information Show Notes What if moving 18 times before your 18th birthday could become your greatest career asset? In this conversation, Jessica Parker reveals how early life challenges shaped an unshakeable approach to career resilience that’s kept her employed for over three decades. Jessica’s path from aspiring computer scientist to elementary educator to tech consultant illustrates the power of strategic pivots and continuous learning. Her story challenges conventional wisdom about career planning, showing how flexibility and adaptability often trump rigid goal-setting. This Episode Covers: Strategic Career Navigation Jessica discusses her approach to building multiple skill sets across project management, quality assurance, and business analysis. She explains how diversifying capabilities creates options during uncertain times and why having “Plan B, C, and D” matters more than perfecting Plan A. The Contract Work Advantage Contrary to popular belief about job security, Jessica makes a compelling case for contract positions as career accelerators. She breaks down the mindset shifts needed to thrive as a contractor and how to leverage temporary roles for skill building and network expansion. Learning as a Core Competency With a habit of reading 300+ books annually, Jessica shares her methods for rapid knowledge acquisition and retention. The conversation explores practical note-taking strategies and how to synthesize information from multiple sources for real-world application. Professional Relationship Building From Toastmasters to industry associations, Jessica explains how authentic networking creates career opportunities. Her “volunteer mindset” approach to workplace collaboration offers a fresh perspective on getting the best from professional relationships. Career Resilience Workshop Insights Jessica developed a custom workshop on career resilience for graduate students, distilling decades of experience into actionable frameworks. She shares key principles around transferable skills, strategic planning, and maintaining employability across economic cycles. Key Takeaways: Document your work thoroughly to avoid becoming indispensable in the wrong way Build relationships before you need them, not during crisis moments Develop skills that transfer across industries and roles Embrace feedback as a gift for professional growth Consider contract work as a strategic career move, not a last resort Guest Background: Jessica Parker is a technology consultant specializing in cybersecurity and AI research. She’s currently completing her doctoral dissertation while running a consulting practice that helps small businesses solve complex technology challenges. Her career spans multiple industries including healthcare, finance, and technology, with experience in project management, quality assurance, and organizational leadership. Resources Mentioned: VitalSmarts “Crucial Conversations” series Project Management Professional (PMP) certification Toastmasters International Society for Information Management (SIM) Connect with Jessica: Find Jessica’s career resilience workshop and research publications on ResearchGate.https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-parker-pmp/ Career Downloads explores the real journeys of technology professionals, uncovering practical advice for managing your own career with greater success. Host Manuel Martinez brings you authentic conversations about the wins, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. Listen on your preferred platform: [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] | [YouTube Music] | [YouTube] Subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday featuring diverse voices from the technology industry. TranscriptionManuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career and their experiences with the goal to help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jessica Parker. We met at a local SIM networking event. I asked her a little bit about kind of the things that she has done over time. There was a lot of interesting information in there. We’ve had a couple of follow-up conversations and I’m really excited because apart from, you know, just the different ways that she’s navigated her career, she’s also built a career workshop. She’s a Toastmaster, so there’s a lot of great details within her career that I’m excited to kind of dig into and we probably won’t get to everything, but, you know, that’s probably a good thing because maybe I can convince her to come back and we can do a part two at some point. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Jessica. Jessica: Thank you so much, Manuel. I really appreciate it. It was so much fun getting to talk to you at the SIM event. The Society for Information Management, our local Las Vegas chapter has grown so much and it’s been exciting because everybody I get to talk to there, I learned so much from them. It’s a lot of fun. Manuel: I agree and I hadn’t, this is probably only the second or third event that I had been to, but it was probably the first one where I’ve got to speak to more people and kind of learn a lot more. So, you know, I’m very excited and just like you, right? Just like you mentioned, you have the ability to learn and meet new people. So for this conversation, if you wouldn’t mind just kind of telling us where you’re currently at and what it is that you do in your current role. Jessica: Well, I often describe my role as a consultant and that’s because I am a consultant. I do a lot with understanding data, understanding what’s going on behind the scenes. I do a lot with cybersecurity and AI in my doctoral research because I’m oh so close to finishing up my doctorate. I’m doing the research this semester and hope to defend in the fall. I’m planning to defend in the fall. I got to be positive about this, you see. Determine, I will defend this fall sometime between September and December, and then I will have finally earned my doctorate, which is pretty exciting. And that doctoral thesis is focused on the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, which is where I get to dig into all of that. I do consulting work where I’m helping small businesses figure out their technology solutions. I’m working with one entrepreneur right now, looking to migrate their site from a solution that was built in 2001. Their developer’s in China and the developer’s ready to move on. It’s time to find somebody new. They don’t have a lot of technology folks in their networks. Reached out to me because my sister’s also involved in the project, so it’s kind of fun. Manuel: That’s amazing. And it’s interesting, you know, just being able to help out in different areas and how you kind of connect with people, right? Like you mentioned, that was your sister that’s involved with it. She brings you in, and I think that’s a theme that I’ve seen through a lot of these different conversations. So now, if you can tell us a little bit about where you grew up, again, we don’t have to go into a lot of detail, but just kind of summarize it for us, and then eventually what your path looked like as, you know, we don’t have to go straight into where you got into technology, but kind of what sparked that interest, or, you know, some people it’s early in their career or in life, and some people it’s not until later on, and they just accidentally fell into it. So I’m very curious to learn more. Jessica: It was definitely not straight. (both laughing) Anything but straight, circuitous, probably. When I grew up, my mother and I moved quite a bit. We moved less frequently once she remarried, but I did the math. By the time I was 18 years old, I moved an average of once a year. I moved 18 times by the time I was 18 years old. That flexibility that comes with that moving frequently is an asset, the one drawback, well, there’s several other drawbacks, but one of the key drawbacks is you don’t have like that same group of friends that you build deep relationships with during your childhood. So people I knew in kindergarten, aside from family, I don’t know them now, because I never saw them again after that. People I knew from first and second grade, never saw them again after that. Third grade, oh, that was fun. I got to go to two schools. I was really mad because we moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the school year ended in May, to Southern California, where the school year ended about a month later. I was, you know, and for a third grade kid, you’re just mad, what do you mean I have to go to more school? I could have been done. It’s those little things that make you mad as a small child. As an adult, you have more perspective. Over time, we did end up staying enough in the same area that I got to build a little bit more depth of friendship through high school. My high school happened to offer a computer class. This was the eighties, just for context. I’m not shy about my age. I got to take BASIC programming, as we took BASIC programming on an Apple IIe that had less memory than my cell phone does now, we could take apart the computer. So it had basically a lid on top that you could just pop off, and you could see all the circuits. So our computer instructor not only taught us how to program in BASIC, but also how the circuit boards were connected and how everything worked. I was super excited for around my 16th birthday to get my very first computer, an Apple IIe with a double disk drive. You know, the bi...

Episode Information Show Notes What does it take to transform from a farm girl in rural Mexico to a cybersecurity solutions engineer at a leading tech company? In this episode, Estela Baca shares her remarkable journey of defying expectations, overcoming setbacks, and building a thriving career in technology. Estela’s story begins in Teziutlán, Mexico, where she grew up with her grandmother in a family where education wasn’t expected for women. After moving to Los Angeles at 15 without speaking English, she navigated high school, earned a computer science degree (while pregnant), and eventually found her way into cybersecurity through marketing and technical roles. Key Topics Discussed: – Early Life and Foundation – Educational Journey – Career Development – Professional Growth Strategies – Cybersecurity Transition – Life Lessons and Philosophy – Networking and Community Key Quotes: – “Action conquers fear” – “Every time somebody tells me no, something switches in my brain” – “I refuse to call it imposter syndrome. It’s the real deal syndrome” – “You can literally start as a marketer and end up as a VP if you understand transferable skills” Resources Mentioned: – “The DevelopHer Playbook” by Lauren Hasson – “Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport – Google Analytics and digital marketing certifications – Local networking groups and tech communities About the Guest: Estela Baca is a Solutions Engineer specializing in cybersecurity and log management. She leads employee resource groups, volunteers in her local tech community, and mentors others looking to break into technology. Her expertise spans digital marketing, technical account management, and cybersecurity solutions. Connect with Estela: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/estela-baca-07b02b6b/ Episode Highlights: This conversation offers practical insights for anyone considering a career change, breaking into tech, or looking to advance in cybersecurity. Estela’s story demonstrates that non-traditional backgrounds can become significant advantages when combined with determination, strategic thinking, and continuous learning. Whether you’re just starting your career journey or looking to make your next move, this episode provides actionable strategies for professional growth, relationship building, and turning challenges into opportunities. Subscribe to Career Downloads: Available on all major podcast platforms. New episodes release every Tuesday featuring real conversations with technology professionals who share their career journeys, lessons learned, and practical advice for professional success. Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background and their experiences, to help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Estela Baca and I had followed her on LinkedIn, saw a lot of the posts, a lot of what she was doing, kind of dug into her background. Eventually I reached out to her and she was very gracious and decided to come on and share her experiences. So I’m very excited, she has a very interesting background, there’s a lot of challenges there and there’s gonna be a lot of good information and a lot of good storytelling for you to kind of listen and learn along the way. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Estela. Estela: Hi, Manny. Manuel: Hello. Again, I appreciate you coming in and talking about your experiences and kind of how you’ve managed your career over time. So if you wouldn’t mind just telling us kind of what your current role is and some of those responsibilities and we’ll take it from there. Estela: Perfect, sounds good. Well, again, Estella Baca, I am currently a solutions engineer for a company that does log management or what some of the people call a SIEM. And some of the main things that I do on a daily is talk to our customers, find their pain points. And for those of you that don’t know what a log management tool is, everything that we use nowadays produces a log. There’s data everywhere, right? Or cell phones or a fit watches, even the TV shows that we watch, right? Everything has data. So the power of data comes when knowing how to leverage that data. So that’s where our SIEM tool comes in. And sometimes before you buy a product, you have to talk to somebody to kind of let them know exactly what is it that you’re looking for. And so that’s where my role comes in, right? My role is mainly talk to our customers and find out what is it that they’re looking for, what problems are they trying to solve in a day to day, how do they manage those massive amounts of data that they have. And in a nutshell, pretty much I helped them discover do they have a small problem, a bigger problem? And realistically, how do they turn their problems into nothing but solutions to get their data and do the most they can with it and grow their businesses, right? Or solve the problems in the long run. My specialty is in cybersecurity. Nevertheless, I do help a lot of our customers to bring in our data for business operations, IT management, application development, and even the IT of things. So it’s just the funny thing about data. You can bend it, twist it, turn it, whatever. It almost reminds me of that game we used to have back in the days, they bump it, twist it, turn it, bump it. And our platform is a lot like a Lego piece, right? So you have a big platform where you have your Lego sets and you can build whatever you want with it. You can have a big city or you can probably have a scene from Star Wars. It’s just what do you wanna do with that data? That’s the easiest way I can think about it. And so my job is to come in and talk to our customers, make them feel comfortable and make them feel like they can find a solution they need with our products. Manuel: I like the way that you kinda analyze it and kind of explain that for people who may, again, may not be familiar with what a SIEM tool or understanding that everything has a log, right? There’s data and everything. So now I’d like to go back and really kind of understand where you grew up and then eventually kind of what led you into technology and kind of what your first experiences were with technology and kind of made you continue on down that path. Estela: So I originally was born and raised in Mexico in a tiny town called Teziutlan, which I’m gonna say it in our language, Tesiútio te Petzintla, is in Puebla in Mexico. And so our town is a very small town, my family. I come from a very large family. The people in my family did not go to school. My grandmother doesn’t know how to read. I think my dad only went to middle school. My mom barely made it to, I think, like sixth grade, right? And so education was not a thing for us, especially being a female our role as being a homemaker and a mother. And so when I was growing up, I grew up with my grandmother, which was great. I think we call her, some people call her Dr. Grandma. But to the point, I grew up with my grandmother and my mom loved reading. My mom and my dad loved reading. And if there’s one thing I do remember for the short period of time that I lived with my parents is we used to always read at night. And I was a small, I was probably two, three years old. And I think very vaguely, I remember that the thing we used to do together as a family was go to bed and not watch TV because we didn’t have money for TV, let’s be honest. And so we will grab books, right? And I didn’t know how to read, but my mom had her book, my dad had her book, but I do remember seeing them reading all the time. And so when I moved with my grandmother, we had this huge collection of encyclopedias. Back in the 80s, encyclopedias were like that thing to have, right? It’s like having a dictionary, like having an iWatch today, everybody had one, right? It’s a need. And so my grandmother to me, because I was very hyperactive, I have always been a talker. And so if I didn’t have something to do, I’ll be bouncing off the walls. Or I’d be like, “Grandma, do this, do that.” She didn’t have the time for that. So she will say, or if she would find me sitting on the couch and I was bored, she’d be like, “Oh, you’re bored?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, okay, go pick up that encyclopedia and read something.” And I’d be like, “Oh my God.” And so I was afraid to ever say I was bored because either it was either you go read or you go clean something. And so I was like, “Oh, I sometimes have a much rather clean than read, but it will depend, right?” And so it was through that that my grandmother, my grandmother, my mom and my dad taught me that reading was a scape goat, right? Like if you didn’t wanna just do something bad, like I didn’t wanna do the dishes, I will definitely read that encyclopedia. But then if I didn’t wanna read that encyclopedia, I will go and clean up something. So nowadays if I’m really stressed out, I either read or I clean. (both laughing) I don’t know but it always happens, right? And so while I was growing up, I hear a lot of kids, their parents talk about when you’re gonna go to college or when you go to college. That wasn’t even in my books. I mean, first of all, I never thought I was smart enough. Second of all, female, like what am I gonna do in school, right? And so growing up with my grandmother, she taught me how to be a farmer, right? Like we had chickens and pigs and I was like, “Oh, my life is gonna be, I’m gonna be a farmer. I’m gonna have some chickens. I’m gonna have some pigs and children.” I don’t know. But I will be a really good farmer because I was really good with pigs, right? So a little did I know when my mother left me with my gran...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez interviews Paola Mendiola, a promising digital forensics student at CSN who shares her journey into technology and cybersecurity. Episode SummaryPaola takes us through her tech journey, beginning with the transformative moment when her father brought home their first computer. This experience allowed her to connect with family in Mexico through video calls – a pivotal event that sparked her passion for technology. As a first-generation tech enthusiast, Paola discusses navigating educational opportunities, from her high school IT and cybersecurity program to her current studies at CSN. Throughout the conversation, Paola candidly shares her experiences with high school robotics competitions, her valuable training at Tech Impact, and how she’s building her professional network as a newcomer to the industry. She provides thoughtful insights about overcoming shyness, establishing a professional presence on LinkedIn, and the crucial importance of finding mentors who can guide your career path. What makes this episode particularly valuable is Paola’s fresh perspective as someone actively entering the field. Her story of recently speaking to young women in tech and her aspirations to become a cybersecurity educator highlight her commitment to helping others following in her footsteps. Key Moments in This Episode02:38 – How Paola’s tech journey began when her dad brought home a computer11:55 – Paola’s experience in high school robotics competitions16:24 – Getting hands-on IT experience through Tech Impact29:20 – Transitioning from shy student to LinkedIn networker44:30 – Speaking to young women about tech and coming full circle52:54 – Paola’s aspiration to become a cybersecurity teacher01:02:40 – Advice for people looking for opportunities in tech Connect with PaolaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paolamend/ Resources MentionedTech Impact: Non-profit organization providing IT trainingSIM Las Vegas: Society for Information ManagementNCWIT: National Center for Women in Information Technology New episodes of Career Downloads are released every Tuesday. Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform to catch all our career conversations with professionals across the tech industry! Join our community on the social platforms:Website: https://careerdownloads.comLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloadsX/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsInstagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/CareerDownloads/61561144531249 #CareerDownloads #Cybersecurity #TechCareers #WomenInTech #DigitalForensics Released: May 20, 2025 Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experiences and how they’re managing their career over time. With the ultimate goal to be able to uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me, Paola Mendiola. And I’m bringing her on because this is gonna be a slightly different conversation. So most of the times I bring on different guests who are already in the industry, have been in for a while and are explaining the different things that they’ve used throughout their career. So the reason that this one’s exciting for me is I have seen a lot of the posts, a lot of the activities that Paola has been doing, you know, on LinkedIn. I reached out to her, we had a couple conversations and I thought it would be beneficial. She’s somebody that’s new and kind of entering into the field. So I think it’d be perfect time to kind of get the perspective from somebody new who’s starting in. You know, some of her background, what led her into technology. And then also eventually, you know, what are some of the activities that she’s doing and why she chose those and you know, how she feels they have either helped or hindered her along her career journey. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Paola. Paola: All right, hi everyone. My name is Paola Mendiola and I’m very excited to be here. So a little bit of a background before we go into anything. I’m currently a student at CSN. So I’m doing my associate’s degree in digital forensics. So cybersecurity. So I’m really excited to be here and nervous obviously, but I’m excited. Manuel: And I appreciate you just kind of telling people what you’re doing now. So if you don’t mind, just so that we can get an idea of kind of where you started. So if you don’t, if you want to tell me, you know, where you grew up and what eventually transpired that made you get interested in technology and it sounds like it might’ve been since you’re a student, there might’ve been something that kind of led you down that path. So, you know, I’m just kind of interested in hearing a little bit more about, you know, that journey. Paola: Okay, all right. So something, sorry. I’m really excited. That’s what, but I was born and raised here in Vegas. So I was little, grew up here, went to elementary, middle, high school, going to college here. So yeah, that’s a little bit about where I’m from. But to be honest, my tech journey started, I was talking to you about this, like on our Google Meets, but my journey started really when my dad brought home a computer. So back then we didn’t really have like a lot of resources. So the moment when my dad brought home like this really cool computer, I don’t remember what it was. It was like in the, I don’t know, like 2010, 2011. It wasn’t the best computer out there, but he brought home this computer. And well, since then, I kind of fell in love with computers. You know, I was kind of curious about how they worked. Like, you know, he just plugged in stuff on a little like TV monitor thing. You know, suddenly he was able to manage the web. He was able to go on YouTube, watch like cool music videos, that sort of stuff. It was really, really impactful. Along with that, I was able to, well at that time, well, my family, most of them are in Mexico and a lot of them, well, they’re there and they can’t really travel over here because it’s kind of costly and stuff. So what my dad did is he set up like this little Zoom call. No, it wasn’t Zoom. It was like Skype at that time. It was like, oh, long time ago. Like this was before like WhatsApp, like FaceTime, all that sort of stuff. So he set up like this call. And so I was able to see my grandparents for the first time ever. Like, you know, I was usually, well, I was really young, so they couldn’t really send me to Mexico to meet my family. So seeing my abuelita, seeing my aunts, seeing everyone there, like in the video call, kind of really, that’s a moment that like sticks out to me till this day. Like this was like years ago, but being able to see their faces, you know, connect their faces to the voices that I used to hear via like just a regular phone call, really, I don’t know. It was such a like moment that, I don’t know, made me want to pursue tech. I wanted to learn about how I could, you know, make something that helps other people in a similar way. So yeah, that’s kind of a little bit about my background. Yeah, it’s a very, it was a really impactful moment. And I still think about it for this day. Manuel: And it makes sense. So I remember as a kid, you know, my first introduction to like computers was like in the classroom, but it was very basic. You were doing assignments, occasionally you got to play a game and that was it. But when my dad and his office, like they had gotten a computer and it was old. I remember we had a monitor and it was green. You know, we had to play, we got to play a couple games, but then eventually they, you know, they replaced that and we got to bring that home. And it was just like playing it and like playing around with it and, you know, at the time we didn’t have like, you know, Skype and those kinds of things, but, you know, me and my siblings just playing around and hey, this isn’t working or, you know, hey, something got disconnected. Now the keyboard is not working and like troubleshooting and trying to figure that out was just, it was something that I didn’t realize it at the time, but to your point, right, it stuck with me all those years. So then now you get this computer, you’re obviously, you know, experiencing, you know, not only technology, but what it can do, right? It’s not just like, hey, this does a thing for me. I can print out my, you know, my assignments and do things like that. So then after you get that computer, did you also start kind of using them in school? Did you use it for assignments? Was it really just to kind of play games? Like what was your continuation after that moment? Paola: To be honest, it was, like our like home computer, like during elementary school, early elementary school, from what I remember, it was just for me to play games. Like to be completely frank, my dad and I would go to the library and we’d pick out like a CD game or like, I don’t know, we’d pick out like a, I don’t know, they don’t even use them a...

Episode Information Show Notes Episode Summary In this enlightening conversation, Manuel Martinez sits down with Jason Frame, Chief Information Officer at Southern Nevada Health District, to explore his remarkable journey from typing code from magazines as a child to leading critical technology initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jason shares candid insights about career progression in technology, developing leadership skills, and building successful teams. About Our Guest Jason Frame serves as the CIO at Southern Nevada Health District, overseeing IT operations for public health services across the Las Vegas area. His organization provides essential health services including restaurant inspections, EMT registrations, and primary care for underserved communities. During COVID-19, Jason’s team led technology efforts for contact tracing, testing, and vaccination management, demonstrating how IT leadership directly impacts critical public services. What You’ll Learn – How Jason’s early experiences with an Apple IIe and Commodore 64 sparked his interest in technology – The transition from programming to leadership roles and the skills needed for each – Why being a continuous learner is crucial for long-term success in technology careers – Practical approaches to communicating your achievements to management – Jason’s hiring philosophy: “I hire for fit and train for skill” – Strategies for stepping outside your comfort zone to accelerate career growth – Practical advice for job interviews and salary negotiations – Why networking and community involvement matter in technology careers Key Insights “If you never ask, the answer is always no.” – Jason shares why taking initiative and seeking opportunities is essential for career advancement. “Don’t reject yourself.” – Jason discusses why you should apply for positions even when you only meet some of the qualifications, noting that men often apply when they meet just 30% of requirements while others might wait until they meet 100%. “Be prepared to show that you’re a learner.” – Jason explains how continuous learning is the most important quality he looks for when hiring technology professionals. Episode Highlights – Jason’s journey from coding games on an Apple IIe to managing complex IT systems – The evolution of IT roles from specialists to versatile technology professionals – How to build relationships that advance your career – Practical strategies for developing both technical and soft skills – The importance of creating a culture where team members are recognized for their contributions – Resources for professional development and continuous learning Connect With Jason Frame Find Jason on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about technology leadership and career development. https://www.linkedin.com/in/framejason/ Join the Conversation What career challenge are you currently facing? Share your questions and experiences in the comments section. We’d love to hear how you’re applying Jason’s advice to your own career journey! #CareerDownloads #TechLeadership #CIOInsights #CareerAdvice #TechnologyCareers #ITLeadership #ProfessionalDevelopment Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experiences and their career with the goal to really understand how they’ve managed it and try and uncover any tips or strategies that they’ve used that you can go ahead and implement as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jason Frame. So he is a CIO for the Southern Nevada Health District and I’ll let him go ahead and explain a little bit more of kind of what some of the roles and responsibilities that he has, you know, and exactly what they cover. I met him a couple of years back. So we had interacted probably at different networking events when I had attended, when I used to work in the public sector and then eventually I became an SE for VMware, called on his account. So really got to know him a little bit, you know, a more intimate level, understand kind of what he’s done, what he’s been into. He does a lot of public speaking. So I thought he’d be a great person to kind of come in and share his experiences. So with that, I’ll introduce Jason Frame. Jason: Thanks, Manny. Manuel: No problem. Appreciate you coming on and, you know, again, we’ve connected and the fact that you were willing to kind of share your experiences. Jason: Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to that ever since I’ve seen a couple of these podcasts before. Manuel: So if you don’t mind, just so that people can, who don’t know you, if you just mind telling us, you know, kind of what your role is, I already mentioned your CIO, but again, what are some of the responsibilities for there and then what do you do for the Southern Nevada Health District? Jason: Perfect. So again, I’m Jason Frame. I’m the Chief Information Officer at Southern Nevada Health District. For those of you who don’t know what Southern Nevada Health District is, we’re the local public health agency in the Las Vegas area. And we also do, besides the public health things that we do, like the restaurant inspections and, you know, we register all of the EMTs in the valley. We make sure all the ambulances are inspected. That’s some of the public health activities that we do. We’re also a primary care provider. So we’re around those communities that are underserved and we’ve opened up multiple clinics to really serve that, the population that’s not getting the healthcare services they need. Another thing that we did, if you remember that couple of years ago, the small thing that happened called COVID, that we were the lead agency on all of that. So everything from the initial contact tracing, testing, doing the vaccinations. We have a public health lab that actually did the tests. And that was all pretty much what we did. Manuel: I know we’ll get into it, but I’m assuming you have to really support all of that and understand the infrastructure and how you support, especially because it’s remote and diverse. Like for people that don’t know Southern Nevada, you know, it’s Vegas, Vegas is why, but I’m assuming you also cover kind of some of the surrounding areas. Jason: We do. I mean, we’re mainly in the Las Vegas area, but we also get down to Laughlin. We have an office in Laughlin. We have a Laughlin office in Mesquite. We go out to Pahrump sometimes. We’ve gone out to, you know, as far as up to Ely and some of those other smaller towns, we’ve sent mobile clinics up there to help them out. We sent one with a dentist just to do checkups. So we do help pretty much all of the Southern Nevada area. Our state is so geographically diverse and there’s only a few different health districts in the state. Most of the time when you’re in a, you know, a lot of the states, basically the health department is part of the city or the county. In Nevada, we’re a little bit different because we’re our own jurisdiction. We’re not part of the county. We’re not part of any of the cities. They all have representatives on our board, but we are independent. There’s a couple other independent ones in the state, ones up in Northern Nevada and then Carson City. They’re kind of independent, but they’re also kind of part of the city county of there. And Washoe County has their own health department. Other than that, for the other 13, I guess counties, it’s all just the state that does it. And they’re very limited in what they can do. So we try to help out where we can. Manuel: So if you don’t mind now, so we know what you currently do, just kind of give us back, you know, kind of go back a little bit to kind of, you know, where you grew up and eventually, you know, at what point in stage you kind of got into technology. Everybody’s different, so. Jason: So I grew up in Carson City, Nevada. Moved there when I was about four and just, you know, pretty much grew up there until high school. Started playing with technology with the Apple IIe way back in the day. You know, that and then my Atari 2600, that was my introduction to technology. And then we had Commodore 64 and we played around with that. Got into, you know, just being in the computer. I really enjoyed it. I had an uncle that was in IT for the Air Force. And even though I didn’t see him very often, when I did, it just interested me in what he was talking about. I remember going back out as a kid and you buy magazines and I’m just dating myself, right? Or you buy a magazine and you take it home because there was a computer program in that magazine. But this is back before the days of putting a CD or a floppy disk in. No, it was on paper, you had to type it in. And so you’d type in the game and then you get to play it. And, you know, you got to think back, you know, with the Atari 2600 being an eight bit game, this is probably another step back from that. It was more like text-based games or stuff like that. But I loved it so much that I go in there and test it. And, you know, I played around and then I’d see it. Oh, how can I tweak this a little bit? And, you know, just playing around with that code to make it either do something different or do something better for me. So I started off doing that. Got my own, my first computer when I was 10 years old, I guess, back in like 83. Manuel: And then just kind of, I’m assuming at that point, you just kind of continued on, you know, messing around with it. And, you know, as a 10 years old, I remember something similar. So my dad had his own business. And I remember like the first, my first experience was they had one, they did their accounting and it was the big fiv...

Episode Information Show Notes Episode SummaryJeremy Jakubowicz’s path to becoming president of multiple AI companies is far from conventional. After struggling with learning disabilities throughout his education, Jeremy carved out a unique career trajectory through film, education, casino promotions, and tech software before landing in his current role. His story demonstrates how challenges can become stepping stones and how following the “natural path” can lead to unexpected success. In This EpisodeJeremy shares how his reading and writing disabilities shaped his approach to career development, emphasizing experiential learning and relationship building. From working as a pizza delivery driver to teaching film production, from MC’ing casino events to transitioning into software sales, Jeremy’s journey showcases the power of turning every experience into an opportunity. His decision to move to Las Vegas for $20,000 less than a competing offer exemplifies his philosophy of betting on long-term vision over immediate gain. Jeremy breaks down how he recognized cultural mismatches in his career transitions and eventually found his home at VizExplorer for seven years before moving into AI. Key Takeaways– Alternative Learning Paths: How Jeremy compensated for reading/writing challenges by becoming hands-on and experiential– Network as Currency: Building genuine relationships opened doors across industries– The Expiration Date Philosophy: Knowing when to pivot based on growth opportunity, cultural fit, or new challenges– Value-Add Mindset: Continuously bringing past experiences to enhance current roles– Cultural Fit > Money: Learning to evaluate opportunities beyond compensation– Natural Path Theory: Why forcing opportunities often leads to resistance Notable Quotes“Don’t overthink things. No matter if it doesn’t work out, you’ll gain valuable takeaways from that experience regardless of its failure or success.”“Everything in life has an expiration date. The thing you need to figure out for yourself is when is that expiration date?”“I always found my path through relationships and building friendships that help open those doors.” Jeremy’s Career TimelineEducational Foundation: Struggled with learning disabilities; found alternative learning methodsFirst Steps: Pizza delivery, film school graduateTeaching Years: Film production teacher with side videography businessCasino Industry: MC, promotions coordinator, progression to managementThe Vegas Gamble: Took pay cut for better opportunity in Las VegasTech Transition: Software sales for casino player tracking systemsVizExplorer Era: Customer success role that lasted 7.5 yearsAI Leadership: Current role as president of multiple AI companies Connect With Jeremyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-jj-jakubowicz-9848a431/ Listen & SubscribeAvailable on all major podcast platforms. Subscribe to Career Downloads for weekly conversations with professionals who’ve navigated unique career paths. Episode Length: 1 hour 4 minutesRelease Date: May 6, 2025 Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest, to really learn how they navigated their career over time, with the intention to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jeremy Jakubowicz. We connected, we had a couple conversations and he shared a little bit with me about his journey, you know, the different triumphs and struggles that he’s dealt with. And I thought that was really interesting. So decided to ask him to come on and share his story with everybody. So with that, I’ll go ahead and let Jeremy introduce himself. So welcome Jeremy. Jeremy: Yes, good morning, thank you for having me. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and being willing to kind of share your experiences. And, you know, we talked about them, so I don’t want to reveal too much, but if you just go ahead and kind of give us a synopsis of, you know, kind of what you’re currently doing, you know, and just a little quick summary of, you know, your career over time. Jeremy: Yeah, no, absolutely. Like I said, thanks so much again for having me on the show. So currently right now I’m the president of a handful of small AI driven companies. Started this about six months ago. And yeah, it’s, I’ll never look back, frankly. So yeah, it’s been fantastic. You know, it’s been a, it’s been an interesting journey to get to the point where I have gotten myself today, starting off as just through grade school, if you will, you know, and getting to a point where I find success and, you know, being able to in my career and obviously raising my family. Manuel: So kind of want to get started. If you give me an idea of, you know, just want to explain to us where you grew up and kind of what eventually, you know, I know we’ve mentioned it before, but you got into technology a little bit later on in life, but just kind of what, you know, what your early aspirations were. Jeremy: Yeah. You know, I think if you get to know me a little bit more, again, raised in, you know, pretty standard middle-class family down in South Florida, in an up and coming area down there back in the early 80s, excuse me, late 80s and early 90s. And you know, at that point, it was just a, again, a nice clean, safe, you know, family-friendly area to grow up. As I was growing up through grade school, I found some challenges along the way. I was, it was an understanding that I had some reading and writing disabilities as a child diagnosed with these understanding of that, you know, it’s going to be a little tough along the way. And it was, it definitely was, you know, I found myself trying to overcompensate in different ways. And that’s, and I set the stage, you know, with saying those different things, because I think it’s important to anybody’s journey and anybody’s, you know, life as they continue to go through their trials and tribulations of, you know, of career and life that you need to understand yourself. You need to understand, you know, what you, who you are first. And then of course, you know, for everybody, that’s watching this, of course, understanding for me, my journey and the struggles that I had. So point is, is that growing up, again, I struggled with some reading and writing disabilities and, you know, and I would have some help along the way, you know, if it wasn’t tutors or if it was guidance counselors or different mentors along the way that I found to be able to help me in my life, I found myself overcompensating in different ways. So if I struggled in reading and writing, I, you can tell probably that, you know, maybe it’s my personality and different things like that, that I was able to latch onto. I was voted class clown in high school. And so I found myself trying to be more outgoing and funny and things like that to overcompensate for my, the inefficiencies on the reading and writing side of my life. So although struggling through actual grade school, I try to use my personality to overcome those different types of challenges. So with that, you know, I always found myself doing other things besides learning through reading or books or, you know, or traditional styles of education and being more hands-on with different things. So if it’s building skate ramps as a kid or taking apart my toys, you know, and then putting them back together, I found myself doing those types of things was the type of, you know, person and personality that I had that I was gonna learn in other ways, learning by doing, learning by experiencing, learning by failure. And to set the stage, that’s really the different things that I find myself doing in order to get myself and propel myself where I am today. Manuel: And that’s pretty interesting, the fact that, you know, you decided to find other ways to learn, right? Because a lot of times, and I’m sure, even with it being a struggle, did you feel that you put in an extra effort on your own to try and kind of surpass that? Or was it really other people kind of helping push you, right, because again, both ways are good. I know sometimes we need just that kind of that motivation, you know, you mentioned you had tutors and people that are like, “No, hey, you can do this.” But then was there also some of that self-determination to say, “Oh, I’m gonna do this.” It may not be the way that you expect me to, but I’m gonna overcome this. Jeremy: Yeah, I think that’s a, I think you nailed it right there. Definitely the latter on this one. I was determined to find a different path than the traditional one that maybe, you know, I grew up believing that you needed to take, right? I know these days with kids, you know, it’s not so traditional in the way that you need to learn and understand things to be successful in this world. But I do believe in the early, you know, in the 90s and things like that, that was still kind of the, you know, the understanding of how you, you know, you get a job and, you know, how you become, you know, a functioning person in society, right? So with that being said, yes, I definitely had some help along the way that was pushing me in certain ways and motivating in others. I, as I mentioned to you, it’s, there’s not a lot of people that actually know that I even have, I struggled, you know, with, you know, those different areas of, you know, in my education and still to that, you know, today, you know, that’s something that kind of sticks with me. But I’ve always, I was able to find those other paths of relationship building and path of, you know, learn...

Episode Information Show Notes In this enlightening episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Sean Leu, a senior IT manager who transformed his career from working as an electrician apprentice to leading development teams in the financial technology sector. This conversation offers invaluable insights into navigating career transitions, developing leadership skills, and embracing continuous learning in the ever-evolving tech industry. About Our Guest: Sean Leu is a senior manager at a financial tech firm, specializing in ServiceNow platform development. His unique career journey spans over 15 years, beginning as an electrician apprentice in 2001 and evolving through various IT roles including help desk, systems engineering, database administration, information security, and ultimately management leadership. Sean’s diverse experience encompasses work with government agencies, casino technology providers, and now financial technology, giving him a broad perspective on career development in the tech sector. Key Discussion Points: – The Power of Career Pivots – Building a Foundation Through Curiosity – The Strategic Value of Continuous Learning – Navigating the Transition to Management – The Interview Coach Revelation – Leadership Development and Time Management – Choosing Your Next Career Move Actionable Takeaways: 1. Embrace curiosity as your primary career development tool – always ask questions and seek mentorship 2. Develop a three-tier learning approach: current role, future goals, and personal interests 3. Understand that career paths are rarely linear – be comfortable with being uncomfortable 4. Master the art of communication, including strategic pauses and structured responses 5. Treat everyone with respect regardless of title – from interns to CEOs 6. Focus on elevating others when in leadership positions 7. Align career moves with personal values and company missions as you progress Notable Quotes: – “You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.” – “As a leader, you have the impact that is critical to their career. You can either make or break their career, and they’re trusting you with it.” – “I think having that vehicle to say, hey, that’s what you specialize in, no matter what career you go into is important.” – “Just talk to them like a regular person, be nice, be genuine, be honest, be candid, and I think you’ll go far in this world.” Resources Mentioned: – Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” – CISSP Certification – PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification – ServiceNow Platform – Toastmasters (Referenced by host) – “The Power of Voice” by Denise Woods (Referenced by host) **About Career Downloads:** Career Downloads is your essential resource for actionable career advice and insights. Each episode features in-depth conversations with technology professionals who share their unique career journeys, challenges, and triumphs. Host Manuel Martinez helps uncover practical strategies you can apply to manage and advance your own career in the tech industry. Subscribe & Follow: – Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/career-downloads/id1757472125 – Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7IPpfSFWzQ2ELXzCZ9aYJS – Google Podcasts: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL_jJTpsVm2duJWqGaSqGQYfyFqmfrWQu – YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads – TikTok: @careerdownloads – Instagram: @careerdownloads – Twitter: @careerdownloads Support the Show: If you found value in this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with colleagues who might benefit from Sean’s insights. Your feedback helps us continue bringing valuable career development content to the tech community. Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background, their experiences, to really uncover and understand the different things that they’ve done to manage their career, with the expectation that eventually we can help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Sean Leu So Sean and I, it’s probably been quite a few years now, we’ve crossed paths, so I was working for a VAR, a value-added reseller, helping do a project to do an implementation for them, and then also kind of do some hands-on training and knowledge transfer. We connected, we kind of stayed in contact a little bit over the years, I’ve seen some of the different areas he had moved to, and really thought it’d be a good opportunity to kind of bring him in, learn more about what he did, some of the decisions he made, and some of the challenges and triumphs that he encountered along the way. So with that, I’ll introduce Sean. Sean: Hey, Sean Leu, I am the senior manager at a financial tech firm, basically working on ServiceNow platform. I think it’s probably been about 15 years or so since we met, I’m guessing probably 2011-ish, if my math is probably correct. But I’ve had a weird, kind of not a straight journey to where I am today, started out as a electrician apprentice. 01:43 lot of the people that I talk to in the IT field, they don’t start in the IT field. You start someplace else and you realize, hey, maybe I wanna change careers. So I started as an electrician apprentice back in 2001. 01:58 t was fun, it was a way to make money, but it wasn’t something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. So I went back to school at San Jose State University back in 2003. Actually went to school for aeronautical engineering, did an internship for a firm out in Silicon Valley, realized I didn’t like the environment that I was working with, the people that I was working with, it was kind of dry. Went back to school for, changed my major to management information systems for the IT side, loved it, haven’t looked back ever since. Got an internship out here in Vegas, that’s why I’m here in Vegas, kind of moved back and forth between Vegas and other states. Worked for the Department of Energy, top secret networks, things of that sort, kind of bounced back between different government agencies for the next like five to 10 years, Department of Defense out in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, other different bases, eventually made a move to the casino industry, oddly from government to casino, very different. And then after that, I moved back into the kind of the financial tech firm or industry. All through that, like I mentioned, I didn’t have a straight path to where I am to a ServiceNow developer position as a senior manager. I started as a winter intern for that Department of Energy, to help desk, to desktop support, to systems engineering, had some database administration in there, some tech support, and then some security aspects. Like I mentioned, to many people, the only thing I haven’t done is networking. will not touch networking, because I am bad at it, so I know my limitations. So I’ve had a different path, right? It’s not a straight path to where I am today, but I’ve enjoyed the ride, and I think it’s kind of helped me develop who I am to kind of take that odd kind of windy path to where I am today. Manuel: I appreciate the way you kind of summarized that and gave a little bit of an expectation of kind of what people can expect. And you and I have kind of talked in the past. You mentioned that you kind of started as the apprenticeship as an electrician. Was that just something that, you know, hey, I want to kind of start paying the bills, just kind of work, not understanding what you wanted to do? Because I think a lot of times people think, and I’m glad you brought it up, is that you have to know that, hey, I want to get an IT, or hey, I want to do networking. But that’s not the case. And I would say that most people probably don’t. They’re figuring it out along the way, just because there’s so many different avenues. So is that kind of what happened? What eventually got you started there? Sean: Yeah, and when I did the apprenticeship, it was like, hey, you know, just try to apply for it. My uncle worked for the Pearl Harbor shipyard. He was like, hey, we have an apprenticeship program. They have different avenues you can go. You can be an electrician, you can be a painter, you can do all these different. So I chose the electrician. I got into the program. It was like a four-year program where you’re an apprentice, you follow mentors. After probably the second year, I realized that it wasn’t really the career that I was looking for. It was more like, hey, it was more monotonous. Or like, hey, go do this exact same thing this year. Like, hey, same day, same thing, just a different day. I felt like I was kind of stuck in a rut. And my brother, who’s probably like five years older than me, he’s an IT. He was going– he was living in California. Just over on the dot-com boom, he was working for IBM. And it seemed really fun. Like, he was making friends. He was doing cool things. And he was, at that time, making a lot of money. I was just like, hey, this sounds like a career that I can kind of look into. So then I made that move to San Jose State to go back to school. Aeronautical engineering was my first, because I don’t want to be a copy paste of my brother. So I was like, aeronautical engineering, try that out. But then eventually, I came back to IT, because I’ve always loved computers. I’ve always kind of been that techy person. But I’ve never seen it as a career, and so I went back to school for it. Manuel: In your experience, right? Because you mentioned that it’s kind of being an intern. And it was just– it’s monotonous. IT is not that way. And I think a lot of times people th...

Episode Information Show Notes In this captivating episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Alan Cunningham, a technology leader with a rich and varied background. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alan shares his remarkable journey from working at age 12 to becoming the CIO for the State of Nevada. Alan walks us through his early fascination with electronics, building sound-to-light units for his DJing career despite being colorblind. His path took him through the British Army where he worked as a signaller, which sparked his journey into technology. After moving to the US in 1995, Alan quickly established himself in the tech world, running a computer store by his second day. Throughout his career, he’s worked as an IT technician, software expert, consultant, ISO for Washoe County School District, and ultimately CIO for the State of Nevada. What stands out in this conversation is Alan’s unwavering commitment to honesty and integrity, which has guided his career decisions even when they led to challenging transitions. He offers practical wisdom for those entering the tech field, emphasizing the importance of building a solid foundation of knowledge through help desk positions or working at small computer stores where problem-solving skills are constantly tested. Alan also shares valuable insights about critical thinking, continuous learning, and the reality behind trending technologies like AI and cloud computing. His straightforward assessment of these tools cuts through marketing hype to reveal their true utility. Whether you’re just starting your career or looking to advance to leadership positions, this episode provides a wealth of practical advice and inspiration from someone who’s navigated the ever-changing technology landscape for four decades. Listen to the full episode to learn how Alan’s commitment to quality work and straightforward communication has shaped his successful career in technology. #CareerDownloads #TechLeadership #CyberSecurity #CIOAdvice Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career and their experiences, to really uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Alan Cunningham. So we’ve crossed paths a couple of times, most recently at a couple of networking events. But when I first met him, he was actually the CIO for the state of Nevada on public sector. Kind of speaking to a couple of contacts that we have in common, they mentioned they had a very interesting story, interesting background, looking at his profile. So me and him have chatted prior to this and I feel like there’s gonna be a lot of good information and a lot of good stories just for people to kind of understand, you know, again, and just find areas that they can find, that you can find that would be beneficial in your own career and help you improve and progress as you manage that. So with that, I will bring on Alan Cunningham. Alan: Good afternoon, how are you? Manuel: Doing very well, thank you for taking the time to come and speak and really just share your experiences. Alan: Yeah, thanks for the invite. It’s always good to try and give back to the community in whichever way we can. Manuel: Definitely. If you could just start by just giving us a brief summary of kind of what your current position is and just some of the roles and responsibilities that you’re in charge of today. Alan: At the moment, I’m working with Cyroot.io You had Asal Gibson on your last show, who is the CEO. I actually worked with her at the contract position at Clark County School District about a year and a half ago. We both got along really well. So when my contract finished with the county, Asal asked if I’d become the CIO. So really I’m the lead technical contact for the company. We’re working a lot on federal, state and government bids. So I look at all the technical requirements and see if we don’t have that talent in-house, where can we reach out to partners and make partnerships to be able to satisfy those bid requirements. So that’s mainly my duties, if you want to call on that at the moment. I’m also on the board of the Cyroot Academy, which is Asal’s nonprofit, which provides free technical training to transitioning military veterans or transitioning military and veterans and underserved communities who are looking for technical training. I’ve been a trainer most of my adult life in various subjects. So I think that’s really important. I’m a British army veteran. I’m not an American army veteran. So I do resonate with the needs of that because military is the same the world over, whichever way you go for it. So that’s really what I’m up to right now. Manuel: And I kind of looked at your profile and I did see that there’s a bit of security background. So I’m really interested to kind of dig into that, as the conversation progresses. But really at this point, what I want to kind of now transition into is, if you can kind of give us just a little bit of background of where you grew up and eventually what got you kind of interested in technology. Everybody’s different, different stages in life. Alan: Yeah, and it’s funny, like once upon a time in a land far, far away, that lived an ogre, because everybody goes with the accent. So I always get the Mike Myers thing with Shrek. And it’s great, like I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Eastern General Hospital. The reason that kind of came up in top of mind, when I applied for my citizenship here after 20 years, I had two green cards. And I went in for my second INS interview. And the lady standing behind her desk with her back to me, she said, sit down, Mr Cunningham. And then she kind of turned her head and said, which maternity hospital were you born in in Edinburgh? And I’m like, well, Eastern General. And she said, well, I was born in Simpson’s Hospital, which is this other maternity hospital two weeks after you. So it was just serendipitous that that happened, which led to me getting all the easy questions on the test, which was funny. But that whole citizenship process was enlightening. And it’s interesting when you look into some of the coincidental. I don’t think they were coincidental. I think they happened. We can talk about that later as well. But so born in Scotland, lived in the country until I was 19. Left school when I was 15 and a half. I’d been working since I was 12 and a half. Evenings, weekends, anything I could get. Then at 14, when I was 14, I started working in a record store, which led to DJing. And eventually, it’s like I’m a great Scottish comedian because I can go around elliptically around the subject and then come back to it again. Billy Connolly, if you ever look him up, he’s phenomenal at that. He’ll talk on something for 20 minutes and then come right back to where you thought you were going in the start. So once I got into DJing, I started building my own electronics for sound to light units, because you couldn’t they were very expensive at the time. So I did some studying at the library at the time because you couldn’t just jump on YouTube because this is pre-internet days and start designing my own PCB boards and putting transistors and stuff together, which was a major challenge for me because I happen to be fully colorblind. So that’s a major challenge for more jobs than you can imagine. Just totally barred just because you’re colorblind. And then once I DJed for years and I joined the army and I’d been into CB radio and just general technology stuff. And then when I joined the military, I was in the infantry and one of the parts of those is communication. So I became a signaller doing radio communications for AhF, satellite, VHF, bus transmissions, all that kind of stuff, encryption, and then transitioned as the military started to get computers. You know, it was like, well, here’s a piece of technology. You know technology. Fix it. No training. No, nothing. I remember the first kind of computer I worked on was a word star word processor. It had a single line of LCD text that you could go in and had a daisy wheel printer. And I remember fixing those. And just before I left the military and came here in 1995, I was working at the signal school as an instructor teaching instructors how to teach. And we were putting in a local area network there. So I was working with the civilian company, digging trenches, laying coax cable, putting on 51 resistors, building star topology networks and ring topology networks and learning all about that before I left the military. And the British Army has some similar programs, the American Army, for transitioning out of military service. So I did like six months at a local college, public community level college, it would be here, on networking, database design, IT administration. So that kind of set me up when I arrived here in 95. I got a job at a local computer store as an IT tech. I was running it the second day I was there, because I just can’t stand disorder. I have to put order where chaos is. And that was great. A place called Technology Center still open today. Curtis and Tim, if you get a chance to watch it, keep going guys. And thanks for everything you taught me. Those are two guys who worked there. Manuel: And I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I question there. So understanding, running the coaxial cable, doing the trenches, was it something that you… I mean, you were part of not just laying the coaxial, but you actually had to dig the… You were doing everything top to bottom? Alan: Yeah. It was on a military base. And I was kind of like the liaison between the civilian company and the military side. So wh...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode, Manuel Martinez talks with Nidhi Nayak, an Enterprise Support Lead with extensive experience across data warehousing, cloud architecture, and technical leadership. Born and raised in India, Nidhi shares her journey from studying mathematics to becoming an engineer, and how her passion for problem-solving drove her career choices. She walks us through the multi-stage interview process she navigated as a recent graduate in India, including how she prepared months in advance for campus recruitment. Nidhi discusses her progression from an ETL developer to various technical leadership roles, explaining why she chose to broaden her knowledge across multiple technologies rather than specializing deeply in just one area. Her approach paid off as she moved from on-premise systems to cloud architecture, ultimately achieving all 12 AWS certifications. Throughout the conversation, Nidhi offers practical wisdom on: Using certifications strategically to validate knowledge and build confidence Teaching others as a pathway to deepen your own understanding Developing presentation and documentation skills for technical and business audiences Creating effective boundaries and knowing when to say “no” to new responsibilities Setting clear goals with personal deadlines to stay accountable Balancing technical expertise with customer-facing responsibilities This episode provides valuable insights for both early-career professionals looking to map their path forward and experienced practitioners seeking ways to expand their impact beyond technical expertise. Listen to the full episode to hear Nidhi’s thoughtful advice on continuous learning, strategic career planning, and finding opportunities to grow even within comfortable roles. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #CloudArchitecture #WomenInTech #CareerAdvice #ProfessionalDevelopment #AWSCertifications Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really understand and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a coworker. Her name is Nidhi Nayak. So we’re no longer on the same team, but we did spend almost a year together, kind of interacting. I understood the different things that she had kind of had experience in. She was really kind of a lead in the group that I was a part of. She helped kind of guide and direct me in certain areas when I had certain difficulties. I looked at her background, I thought it was pretty interesting. I’ve seen her kind of give internal presentations and I thought she would be a good guest to kind of uncover and learn more about. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Nidhi. So welcome Nidhi. Nidhi: Hey Manny. Manuel: So I really appreciate you coming on and being open to sharing your experiences. Nidhi: Of course, thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Manuel: I know that we’re here in Austin, we’re here for a team gathering. So I mean, I was glad that when I reached out and you were open to kind of talking about this. So if you don’t mind just to start off, just give me a brief summary of kind of tell me what your role or current position is and just a summary of some of your roles and responsibilities so that people understand kind of what you do now. Nidhi: So hey, everyone like, currently I’m the enterprise support lead. So as an enterprise support lead, you are not just only the technical account manager, like you’re handling your customer, but then you are working with the people. So like we are, there is a pool of TAM, the cluster of TAM, whom you are managing. So managing in the sense like mentoring, so if they have any questions, they will come to you. So you need to help them with those. Taking care, like if they are on a vacation, so making sure that they have proper coverage, so those tasks. And apart from that, for my own personal interests, I’m also like working on a couple of internal projects and also contributing towards the technical community field so that I can stay in touch with the development and my technical skills. So yeah, and I really enjoyed working on this role. Manuel: If you don’t mind telling me kind of where you grew up and eventually, you know, what got you interested in technology, like everybody’s has different, but at some point, there’s something that called you towards that field. So if you don’t mind just kind of sharing. Nidhi: Sure, so I born and brought up in India. So I’m from the state Madhya Pradesh. So I did my schooling there. And during my schooling, I decided to become an engineer. So I have this aspiration since my childhood. And as I started growing up, I have more interest towards the maths. I like to solve those problems, those logics. So that’s how I took that as my career path. And then I came to know, okay, I can do the engineering. So I’d take the entrance exam. I passed it and like that time in 2020… 2002, basically. So everything was revolving around computers, IT. So I thought of exploring my career in that technology. So I did my bachelors of engineering from India in information technology. And that’s how I started my career. And then I got my first job in India. That was with Data Consultancy Services. And I joined as an assistant system engineer. And that’s how my career started over there. Manuel: As you started your career, right? So going through and understanding that you, you know, had your bachelors, what was the process or the experience like for you coming out of college? So I know for most people, and I’m one of those ones that similar to you, I went to college and went for management information systems. But for me, trying to land a job right out of college, it was difficult. I thought, I have a degree. People are just gonna come after me, but they were also looking for experience. So what was that process like for you over there in India? Nidhi: I, as I mentioned, I like to do those problem solving logistics and how the process there works is like company first screen you through their like quantitative analytics skills. So first you have to like go through that process. Like you will get a paper. You have to solve it in a certain amount of time. If you qualify for that, then they will call you for the technical interview. So I was like during my engineering time, so whenever I’m having those summer breaks or winter breaks, I used to solve those problems from my third year itself. And I started preparing myself for like the campus interviews. So I was, I like I solved problem like quantitative, then there was logistics, verbals, non-verbals. So I used to get those books and start working on that. And like once I started, I really kind of enjoying those things. Then like I just to prepare for an interview, right? Like you need to have certain skillset, like how you are going to talk, what you need to talk. So I did a crash course there. That crash course helped me to like excel in the GDPI so that I can appear for the interview. And that’s how like I prepared myself. And on my fourth year, I started like finding the campus jobs, like where like we can just companies are coming. They are like examining that a candidate, candidate qualifies, then you will move to the another round, like the group discussion rounds. And then once the group discussion is done, you will be moving to the personal interview rounds. So there are like technical personal interviews, HR rounds. So I prepared well ahead before reaching to that stage that helped me in my career path. Manuel: So is that pretty common down there to go through multiple stages like that? Because I know here, again, it’s very company dependent. Some people have multiple interviews, some have one, some do a screening, some don’t. So is that commonplace? Nidhi: Yeah, so for like recent college graduate, that’s a common process because like they are hiring in like bulk. So like, and people are appearing. So like more and more number of people are appearing over there for interview. So they need to screen the candidates so that is the process of elimination. So suppose if like thousand candidate appears for the writing exam, maybe like 600 qualifies, then the group discussion comes. So in group discussion, maybe only 200 qualifies. Then the technical interview in the HR may be like 100 or 150 qualifies. So that’s how they screen the candidates. Manuel: So that’s the process there. And that’s why you were able to sign up for the crash course because this is a commonplace thing where people go through and help coach you. Nidhi: Yeah, so yeah, like I talked to the people who were already faced those like my seniors and all. So that also helps in getting the guidance. So I was checking with them how they prepared, how they landed into the job and then the internet, right? Like you can search those things. So like that time it was not that active, but still there are forums where people share their experiences that helps me to prepare myself for that. Manuel: Awesome, so then now you go through, you land your first role and you mentioned that you enjoyed kind of the research and the preparing part. So then what was kind of, how did you feel once you landed the role and actually started doing the hands-on practical work? Nidhi: I feel I really enjoyed that. So it’s not like whatever you are studying in college that you ...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode, Manuel Martinez interviews Taft Singletary, a Senior Technical Account Manager with three decades of experience in telecommunications and technology. Taft shares his path from growing up in North Philadelphia to becoming a respected cloud professional. Starting with his education at DeVry University and early career at RAM Mobile Data, Taft worked on cutting-edge technology including the first prototypes of BlackBerry devices and Palm Pilots. He details his progression through roles at Cox Communications, Comcast, Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco), and beyond, sharing honest reflections on career transitions and leadership challenges. Throughout the conversation, Taft offers practical career advice: surround yourself with high achievers, build meaningful professional relationships, and take strategic control of your career path. His story highlights how combining technical expertise with people skills creates opportunities in the rapidly changing technology landscape. This episode provides valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage looking to grow their careers and navigate industry evolution successfully. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #CloudComputing #Telecommunications #ProfessionalDevelopment #MentorshipMatters Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a coworker. His name is Taft Singletary and his background is in communications and telecom. So we did have a brief conversation when we first started working together and he kind of mentioned some of his background, I shared some of mine, and I thought it was a really interesting kind of how he ended up moving in here and some of the experiences and his expertise. So I figured I would bring him on and just really kind of dig in a little bit deeper and share that story with the rest of you. So I will go ahead and introduce Taft. So thanks Taft, I appreciate you coming on and being open and willing to share your experiences. Taft: I appreciate it, man. Thanks for inviting me. My first time on a podcast, but I do appreciate the mission that you’re trying to accomplish and yeah, can’t wait to share. Just my, you know, everything that I’ve done and hopefully it’ll help others. And again, hopefully it’ll just maybe motivate others to maybe look more into tech, follow their passions, things of that nature. Manuel: So if you don’t mind just kind of to start off, just give me a brief summary of kind of what your current role or position is and then just some of the roles and responsibilities of what you are in charge of today. Taft: Yeah, so I’m a senior technical account manager. I have multiple customers and my job is really to just help them maximize their cloud, their complex cloud journey. And they’re all in different phases of their cloud journey. Some are recently starting, some are just well-advanced. And my job is to really help them excel at operational components, their usage, their cost, seeing around corners for them from a security perspective, really just being a technical consultant for them and just making sure that they are maximizing, I’m gonna say their cloud investments. And that’s ultimately what my job is. Manuel: If you can now kind of give us a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and kind of what eventually got you interested in technology, so everybody’s different. Some people early on, some people later in life, but just kind of what sparked that eventual interest and that want to kind of pursue that area. Taft: Yeah, so I grew up in Philadelphia, a very poor section of Philadelphia, North Philadelphia. And we didn’t have a lot. And this is, I’m a little older now, so this is 80s time period. So internet hasn’t really jumped off yet. And there’s really only certain things that you can get into from a technology perspective. And for me, it was movies. It was, I was very attracted to movies like Star Wars and the old series Star Trek and all these things. And it was just, hey, being able to beam somebody onto a planet and just the Star Wars is all this electronics and it was just great. I just, I really just love that. But at the time, like I said, there wasn’t… you had some computers, Commodore computers and kind of basic stuff. You had Atari systems. Everything was kind of really basic, but I was into all of those things. To the point where my mom just left me alone. I would get on my Atari, kind of like the kids do today. But I was just into technology, walkie talkies, anything that had any sort of, to me, tech. I just was like focused intently on it. So I graduated high school and I was actually going to go into Air Force and that’s a total another story. I got talked out of it. But there was a recruiter for DeVry University. And at the time, DeVry University had a telecommunications management program. And I was really interested in it. It encompassed computers. At the time, telephone was really the, the telecommunications medium. But it was electronic engineering. So we put together circuit boards. It was pretty much everything. And it was low cost. Because again, I came from, my parents couldn’t afford to send me to, I’m going to say like a regular college. But more importantly, a lot of regular colleges didn’t have that broad of a program. It was really computer programming. And this one was computer programming and everything else like I mentioned. So I decided I’m going to go there. And I ended up going off to DeVry. Got a bachelor degree in telecommunications. And again, I was able to really chart my career. And it was early on. And so I could go into computer programming or I can go into just pure electronic engineering. Or if I wanted to stay in telecommunications, I can get into the telephone side. And there was plenty of telephone companies out there that were looking for engineers to do, just basic communications sort of things. So that’s where I got started. And then when I graduated, I ended up moving back to Philadelphia with my uncle. And you’ll find my uncle come up a lot. He was the one that, he was pretty successful, but more in a traditional, he was like an accountant. But he pushed me hard to excel. Like I would come home with D’s and he would literally like just go crazy. I’m like, what are you doing? You have to get A’s, you don’t understand it. And now I get what he was saying. Like again, at the time as a young black male, I didn’t understand him, but he’s trying to tell me you have to be excellent. You can’t be just good, you have to be excellent. So again, you’ll find out he’ll probably come up a lot in our conversation, but he really didn’t want me to go off and do computers. He thought that was too edgy too this. So I kind of bucked the trend with him and said, no, no, no, I’m gonna go do this. Cause that’s just where I wanted to be. So I graduate, I’m back living with him. I mean my mom and dad in North Philly, but I didn’t want to go back to the hood hood. So I’m with him. (both laughing) And I was literally about to start work at a Radio Shack. I had got a job offer at a Radio Shack and I get a call from RAM Mobile Data. So RAM Mobile Data, they did a national packet switching network that included wireless. And it was really kind of the first kind of two way radio type of communication that included data. You had telephone, but actual data. And so they offered me a position. It was for $29,000 a year. I thought it was like the best thing ever. (both laughing) And so I’m in Philadelphia, I moved to North Jersey cause that’s where they were based at. And I was a lab engineer in which allowed me to start from the ground up. So I was building equipment, I was upgrading, we call them cell towers and cell switches, upgrading cell switches, doing packet analysis, all these different things that I thought was just the coolest thing possible. It was amazing. Manuel: So, and you mentioned like when you were in college, you’re getting exposure to like, it sounds like a number of different things. So was communications, after you graduated and you mentioned Radio Shack and eventually this company called you, were you, was communications the area that kind of called your attention more? And were you like putting in applications everywhere? Was this, what was that process for you kind of moving out and saying, okay, this is where I think I wanna go. Like I get you pick technology, but what made you decide communications and apply in that realm? Taft: That’s a good question. So at DeVry, one of the things they have you do is before you get your bachelor’s degree, you have to do an internship somewhere. And in Jersey, they only offered an associate degree. So you had to move to one of four locations to actually get a bachelor’s degree. So DeVry University had locations in multiple cities. I chose Kansas City. So I actually moved out to Kansas City for my final two years. And my internship happened to be with Sprint, which was based in Kansas City. So my internship, we would wire, they would send us telephone jobs and we would actually wire, let’s say like an office building with telephone. It was all telephony wired, went down to like a PBX switch. And it was all voice, but it was all communications. And that started getting me into a twisted pair and punching down and dialing, making sure that, okay, this is working, testing it. And so that was really what kind of sparked my interest in, man, I like to focus on the communication side. Because again, I could have did computer ...

Episode Information Show Notes In this powerful episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Asal “Vox” Gibson, CEO and founder of Cyroot and president of Cyroot Academy. Vox shares her extraordinary career path that began as an immigrant who didn’t speak English and worked in exchange for groceries. Vox takes us through her journey of determination and growth: becoming a RadioShack store manager at just 20 years old, transitioning to automotive sales, building a successful career in financial services, and eventually working in defense contracting with top security clearance. Throughout the conversation, Vox reveals the values and mindset that propelled her success: an unwavering work ethic, hunger for knowledge, and willingness to start from scratch in entirely new fields. She explains how each career transition taught her valuable skills that built upon one another, creating a foundation for her current roles leading both a cybersecurity company and a nonprofit providing free education to military personnel. Key moments include: The origin story of her military call sign “Vox” (meaning “voice of the people”) How she overcame language barriers and financial hardships after arriving in America Why critical thinking skills matter more than credentials in technology careers Her approach to screening job candidates for problem-solving abilities How she’s now paying forward the opportunities she received by creating educational programs for transitioning military personnel This conversation offers practical wisdom about career advancement, the importance of being teachable, and finding purpose through helping others succeed. If you’re looking to transform your career or seeking inspiration on overcoming obstacles, this episode delivers actionable insights from someone who’s mastered the art of career reinvention. Listen to the full episode to hear Vox’s complete story and learn how she’s now helping others find their own path to success. Episode release date: April 1, 2025 #CareerDownloads #CareerTransition #TechLeadership #CyberSecurity #VeteransSupport Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experience and their background to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can uncover as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Asal Gibson, also goes by call sign “Vox”. So there’s a, sounds like there’s a pretty interesting story around that so I’m excited to dig into that. So I met Asal at a networking event. I didn’t get much of a chance to kind of interact with her, you know, started to look at her LinkedIn profile, saw a lot of what she was posting, what she was doing. I looked at her background and felt that she would be an amazing guest to kind of bring on and just learn more about kind of what she’s done throughout her career and, you know, anything that she might be able to impart onto others. So she teaches part-time, she’s been a project manager, she also has started a non-profit, she’s, you know, was in the military, still helps out the military. So there’s a number of different ways that this conversation can go and I’m actually really excited because this, I just have the feeling that this is probably going to be a two -part series at some point. So with that I will go ahead and introduce Asal. Hi. Asal: Hi. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and taking the time to kind of share your story and your experiences. So to kind of get started, normally what I ask people is kind of what your current role is and I know that you have multiple different ones so you can name them all, pick a couple and then just kind of a brief summary of some of the roles and responsibilities just so that people can get an understanding of kind of who “Vox” is today. Asal: Sure. Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m the CEO and founder of Cyroot. We’re an IT and cyber security company born and raised here in Las Vegas. And I’m also the president of Cyroot Academy. It’s a non-profit arm of our company where we provide education at no cost to our military and veterans in the community. And about the teaching, I’ve been teaching for going on three years. I taught cyber security for two years at UNLV and a couple other universities. And now I’m on a faculty in a business school where I teach business classes and IT project management classes. Manuel: I know we’re going to probably get into it at some point, but I really want to, I am very curious now. So I’m curious how the call sign name “Vox” came about. So I don’t know if that’s something you want to dig into now, or if it’s something that will kind of come up along, you know, the conversation. Asal: Yeah. So I’ve had that call sign for 10 years. In the aviation community, you normally get a call sign. I think it started as a security thing. You go by a nickname or call sign, not your full name. Now I was never a pilot, but I hung out with pilots and, you know, I just went by the name Asal. And they start giving me different call signs. Like if I was being picky about the coffee, I’m like, this coffee sucks. They’re like, finicky, that’s your call sign. And I would get annoyed. I’m like, I’m not finicky. Okay. But this coffee sucks. And then they gave me the call sign “Big E” because I was the most extroverted person in there because I would come in and say, good morning. And no one would say good morning back. And they’re like, you’re way too extroverted. So I went by a “Big E” until, um, a person said, Hey, you can’t call her the “Big E” that’s the big enterprise ship, you know, in the Navy. Like, um, so I went back to being called Asal. And then I was presenting a project to the CEO and people in the company saying, Hey, we really need to recruit people out of college and give them a chance, sponsor their security clearance and bring them into the defense contracting instead of building ridiculous requirement for entry-level jobs. Uh, so I started getting, Oh, some attention for that. Like, where did that come from? So, uh, the CEO, uh, and a commander thought, well, “Vox” would be good call sign for me because “Vox” means the voice of the people. And, um, I wanted to take a second to think about it, but you can’t think about it. And if you don’t like it, it will definitely get stuck. So he basically, the boss said, we’re calling you “Vox” from this point on, but no one knew that outside of my office. And when I left the Navy, went to work for the Air Force, they said, Hey, you have to deploy to the Middle East. And I’ve never been deployed. I was never trained as military personnel. You know, I was civilian. So I showed up there and on day one, ironically, it was the first ever in my life. They said, do you have a call sign or anything you go by? And I’m like, why do you, why did you just ask me this? Cause no one ever asked. And I said, “Vox”. Uh, so it, it became a thing, uh, you know, serving the Air Force for a couple of years. Uh, just everyone called me “Vox”. And when I came back stateside, I had so many friends from the military. So it, it just, uh, it kind of became more real and never went away. Manuel: Well, and based on kind of conversations we’ve had and a lot of what you’re doing, it almost, it sounds like it’s very fitting, right? “Vox”, the voice of the people. So, you know, I’m interested as we kind of dig into your journey and, you know, so that people can understand kind of that parallel and where this goes. Asal: Yeah, absolutely. Manuel: So now tell me a little bit of kind of your background, kind of, you know, where you grew up and, you know, eventually kind of what led you into technology. If it was later on in life, it was early. Um, you know, if it, if it was later on, then just, you know, we can get to there eventually just so that people understand, you know, just kind of the foundation of what led you to where you are now. Asal: So it’s a little bit of a complicated story. I grew up in the Middle East and came to the United States in 2001. Didn’t speak any English, came here with my mom and my sister. We didn’t have any money. My parents separated and everything that you could imagine could go wrong, went wrong. Uh, for example, we were supposed to arrive on September 12th, 2001 and we got held up and couldn’t make it, you know, until, uh, September 24th, you know, of that year. So it was, it was a difficult transition to get here. And my first job, I worked for food. I worked for groceries. And when people, you know, hear that, they say like everybody works for food. I said, no, I actually worked for food as I got paid with groceries for my family. I, you know, I didn’t have any skills or language and I walked four miles to go to the store. I opened at 8am and worked till 11pm. And the store, you know, owner would say, you know, take whatever grocery for your mom and your sister. And that’s, I did that for six months. I made my first dollar when I was sick. I was so burned out. I was getting very little sleep and he would like do, you know, he would like take my hours, calculate them. And he would look at the groceries I picked. And he looked at me that night and I was so drained. And, and he said, you owe me $7 and 50 cents. And I said, okay, why do I don’t have any cash? As you know, I’ve never had cash, uh, but I’m happy to work an extra hour. Uh, so I think he felt bad. So he said, you know, I’m going to give you a couple of dollars to take the bus. You don’t have to walk home tonight. So he gave me two bucks. And that was the first two dollars I ever made. Actually, like it was the first time I s...

Episode Information Show Notes In Episode 28 of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez interviews Dalien Ahiekpor, Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, who shares his transformation from tech-curious teenager to cloud professional. Learn how winning a PC at a summer tech camp sparked Dalien’s interest in technology, why he chose computer science despite early struggles with programming, and how he navigated from network engineering to his current role. Dalien reveals the six-month job search that tested his persistence, his unconventional approach to landing his dream position, and the profound impact mentorship had on his career trajectory. He offers practical interview advice for standing out among candidates and emphasizes taking ownership of your career path. Whether you’re looking to break into tech, transition to cloud computing, or find effective mentors, this conversation provides actionable strategies from someone who’s successfully navigated the journey. #CareerDownloads #CloudComputing #AWSCareers #TechMentorship Transcription Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn about their background, their experiences, to really uncover any actionable advice that they’ve used to manage their career that you can go ahead and implement and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a co-worker. His name is Dalien Ahiekpor and we work together. We looked at his background. He’s very passionate about mentorship and also like early career growth. So I thought he would be a great person to kind of bring on and I won’t dive too much deeper and I’ll let him kind of explain a lot of that for us. So with that, welcome Dalien. Dalien: Hey folks, thanks so much for having me. Manuel: No problem. I appreciate you coming on and, you know, being open to sharing your experiences for others and, you know, you know, helping somebody out who could probably find value in this. Dalien: Absolutely. Manuel: So if you don’t mind to start off, kind of tell me what your current role is and just a brief summary of, you know, what are some of your roles and responsibilities for kind of what you do in that role? Dalien: Sure. So as Manuel alluded to in the beginning of the call, I’m a senior technical account manager at AWS. We’re colleagues. I’ve been working at AWS for a few years now in various roles. As mentioned, most commonly or most recently, the senior technical account manager role are commonly referred to as TAM. As a TAM, we’re really responsible for, we’re seen as the customer advocate on the account team. So we’re an extension of enterprise support where we really quarterback a lot of the operational concerns that a customer might have, any issues they have with services, escalations, helping them understand a strategic initiative for their company and how we can help with that. That’s what we do here at AWS Enterprise Support. Manuel: So now, if you wouldn’t mind kind of telling me a little bit about some of your background and, you know, kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of led you into, you know, wanting to pursue technology? Dalien: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, Northwest Ohio area, not too far from Detroit, if you’re familiar. Born and raised there. Went to college there as well, University of Toledo. Go Rockets. And I got into tech. That’s a very, that’s a good question as, you know, when I was growing up, one of the most profound conversations I remember having relatively young, probably a freshman in high school. I remember a conversation I had with my father and my parents both graduated. They’re, you know, graduate college graduates. They actually met in college and I was probably around that age, probably, you know, it was expected to go to college coming from the family. But I didn’t really have a defined destination or what I was going to be going for. And so my father went for business. I was kind of defaulting towards that as a lot of college majors do. But understanding, and from a conversation I had with my father, he mentioned that, you know, I went to school for business and it did me well, but especially where he went into entrepreneurship, college was, you know, you don’t need a degree to be an entrepreneur. So if you’re going to pay for college and to do something like that, get something that we can specialize in. So he didn’t necessarily direct me towards technology or computer science, but he mentioned being a specialist, getting something that you can specialize in a particular field. So that conversation kind of resonated with me as I still remember it today, quite vividly. And later on through my hight school career, as I was getting educated, I, my mom signed me up, you know, as good mothers do, you know, push you towards things and support you on your way. And she signed me up for a tech summer camp. I think it was my junior year of high school. You know, I didn’t want to necessarily go, but you know, they said there’d be fun things to do. And, you know, mom was pushing me towards it. So I agreed. And actually the first day we went into that camp, it was, we were building, you know, gaming PCs. So it was my first hands-on experience with computers and technology. And, uh, through that initiative, actually we raffled off the computers that we worked on and lo and behold, I actually won the raffle. Uh, so I was able to get, come home with a nice build, which was my first own personal computer, which I cherished for many years. Still have it. It doesn’t necessarily get any use today, but it’s kind of sitting in the closet. Uh, but, uh, definitely a cherished heirloom. Uh, maybe I’ll pass it down to my kids one day. They’ll see it as a dinosaur. But, uh, uh, that was definitely something that intrigued me as going through that bootcamp kind of got me interested in tech and then getting in the computer, setting it up, understanding the different components, file explorer, going through file paths. Um, yeah, it really intrigued me and, you know, kind of got me prepped into, uh, computer science. Once I had to pick a, declare a major, it was kind of the de facto, I was doing a lot of computer stuff, gotten to gaming a little bit, uh, in high school and college. So it was just kind of the natural progression was interested in it. So I’m like, Hey, I’ll just make it a potential career. Manuel: And with that, so as you’re kind of, you know, you get introduced to it, I’m assuming it was pretty, you know, I remember the first time I built a PC, right. And it was kind of like, Oh, you have something tangible that you put together, you work. Um, you know, it starts to work and you’re also, you know, mentioned you’re digging around and file explorer. So it sounds like you were very curious, at least at that point. And is that something that you had like a natural curiosity to kind of learn more about things? Or is it really like, this is so new and interesting that, okay, maybe I want to dig into it a little bit deeper? Dalien: Yeah, well, so I guess it’s kind of a little bit of both. So it was kind of, it kind of stemmed from an understanding of, you know, once I got this computer, what can I do with it? I didn’t have my own personal computer. We had like a laptop, uh, uh, you know, cheap laptop that we had in the house. It was the family computer, but it wasn’t running anything, you know, other than RuneScape couldn’t really run any, uh, big games on it. So once I got this computer, um, it was just like, okay, what can I do with this? What’s, what’s capable? What kind of programs can I get without, uh, implicating myself? You know, I may have to get, uh, very creative in terms of how to get some of these games and different softwares. Uh, so it kind of got me interested in like, okay, how do I use this machine to the best of my abilities, right? I got to build with nothing on it other than windows. How do I actually turn this into something that I’m going to use regularly, um, in for school, for recreation? How am I going to leverage this machine that I was fortunate enough to win? So that kind of got me just interested in, all right, what’s capable? What can I do? What’s available? How do I set these things up? Cause then once you start running into issues, you know, I didn’t necessarily have a place to go to get things fixed or I didn’t have money to pay for someone to come help me fix my stuff. So a lot of YouTube, a lot of grinding and, you know, through trial and error, I was able to, you know, come up with something that was like, oh, this is actually pretty interesting and how it works. Manuel: So then now you get into college and, you know, you declare, you know, computer science major, were the classes that you took, do you think that they kind of helped continue to build that informational, you know, database or knowledge base that you had and, you know, kind of continue to move forward? Or was it like, you know, all right, this is cool. This is interesting. It’s helping me kind of understand, but I still really don’t know what I’m going to kind of do with it. Dalien: Yeah. So I’ll say it was kind of rough. My first couple of years in computer science, almost like deterred me from going into it as a full-time career. A lot of my early classes in the computer science field were on programming, you know, different languages. You’re learning some of the more basic languages. I had an assembly class that, so to this day, I don’t know how I passed, but a lot of different, different capabilities that I was not familiar with or comfortable with. So early on in my career or in my college days, it was, it almost made me pursue somethin...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez interviews Jason Smith, who shares his remarkable journey from a 20-year career as an Air Force jet engine mechanic to becoming a Technical Curriculum Developer at AWS Training and Certification. Jason discusses growing up in a small Ohio town, his initial career working for a sewer rehabilitation company, and the moment that sparked his interest in joining the Air Force. Throughout his military career, Jason gained valuable skills in leadership, communication, and training that would later prove instrumental in his tech transition. Using the military’s SkillsBridge program, Jason secured an apprenticeship with AWS despite having zero prior knowledge of cloud computing. He candidly shares his struggle with imposter syndrome, certification challenges, and how he overcame them through persistence and collaborative learning. Key topics covered: Jason’s 20-year military career progression and the skills he developed How military training and instructor experience translated to curriculum development Navigating the transition from military to civilian tech career Overcoming imposter syndrome when entering an unfamiliar field The value of “getting comfortable being uncomfortable” in career growth Why asking “dumb questions” can accelerate learning and professional development Whether you’re a veteran looking to transition to civilian work, considering a major career pivot, or simply interested in tech career paths, Jason’s story offers valuable insights and practical advice for navigating significant professional changes. #CareerDownloads #VeteranSuccess #TechCareers #AWSCertification #CloudComputing #CareerTransition Transcription Manuel: Welcome, everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career and really try to uncover any actionable advice and tips that they’ve used as they’ve managed their career so that you can go ahead and use and implement as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jason Smith. And I met Jason at my current place of employment at AWS, we happen to be working a conference together, kind of started, you know, just getting to know each other and learn a little bit more. And, I felt that he had a very interesting career path where he kind of, you know, fell into technology. And, you know, I’m excited to kind of dig a little bit more into that and have him share, you know, his trajectory and ultimately what landed him into the role that he’s in now. So with that, I’ll introduce Jason Smith. Jason: Thanks, Manny. Manuel: Appreciate you coming on and taking the time to really kind of share your story and your experiences to, you know, hopefully, you know, inspire or be able to help others along the way. Jason: Yeah, glad to be here. I actually feel a little honored that you invited me to do this. So yeah, I appreciate it. Manuel: So kind of what I’ve been doing with the guests is if you just kind of briefly tell me what your current role is, and just a brief summary of kind of what your roles and responsibilities are, and then we’ll kind of take it from there. Jason: Yeah, so currently, I work with AWS Training and Certification. So my role is a Technical Curriculum Developer. And I work primarily on instructor led training. So what that means is any of the courses that you’ve, so there’s, there’s, there’s going to be some courses on like Skill Builder, if you’ve heard of that, AWS Training and Certification has a platform called Skill Builder, and they deliver. So now they deliver digital training. So I believe like AWS JAMs are held on there where you can, it’s kind of a simulation to you try to solve a challenge, you know, that we could do hands on keyboard. They also offer like digital instructor led training. And, beside that, they offer instructor training. So that some of that is virtual. And then some of that could be like hosted on site where a trainer comes to your, you know, place from employment, if you know, large corporation wants to deliver training, but it’s all focused around getting, getting learners comfortable with the cloud services that we offer. So some of the trainings I’ve worked on, uh, have been primarily around machine learning. So develop curriculum for my first class I worked on was, um, it, it actually got shelved. So you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t even hear about it. So it, there was a shift in priority, uh, with, with the training I was working on at the time. And then, so I guess my first course would be Amazon SageMaker Studio for Data Scientists. So that teaches learners primarily focused towards data scientists, uh, to use Amazon SageMaker, you know, for kind of from start to finish through, through the whole machine learning process, even from formulating a business problem through all the way through processing the data and everything you can do with Amazon SageMaker as a service. Uh, so, and that course went through a development cycle and then it gets, you know, it’s, it’s packaged and ready for trainers to deliver to, to learners. Uh, so I, I’m behind the scenes working with, uh, other developers, sometimes instructional designers, uh, sometimes learning experience designers, working with the subject matter experts. Like we worked with the, a few, uh, uh, a few, uh, like solutions architects, senior solutions architects, uh, to get one, you know, like real world scenarios, make sure we’re, we’re offering like, Hey, this is how people are using the technology. Uh, so work with, with those as well as like globally delivery instructors, all to create, you know, a well, a well packaged and, and, and high quality, uh, training for our, for our learners. So yeah, that’s kind of my role right now. And right, right now, uh, I’ve worked on several courses for instructor led training, but actually now I’m working on a, uh, a cloud ops, uh, role-based training and that’s a digital offering. So I’ve been primarily instuctor led training, but also work in the digital space as well. So. Manuel: No, and that’s, that’s pretty cool. And when we first kind of talked and you kind of told me what the role was, and I think the interesting part is, and, you know, we’re going to dig into that now is kind of how you ended up in that role, you know, especially with your, your experience and your background. So with that, um, if you kind of, now we’ll kind of take a step back and tell me kind of where you grew up and then eventually kind of what got you interested in the technology, whether it was like early in life later on, and then we’ll kind of, you know, follow your career trajectory to where you’re at now. Jason: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m from a, I’m from a really small town, uh, in, Ohio. So, it’s Camden, Ohio. So that’s where I spent, uh, so I give it…not to get too personal, but so I’m from a divorced family, you know, statistically, a lot of us are right. Uh, so there was, I either lived in Westerville, Ohio, like I lived in Westerville, Ohio, which is right above Columbus, Ohio, like, like Northeast, uh, just a few miles outside of, uh, Westerville, Ohio. Outside of Columbus, Ohio. Sorry. And I spent, uh, like kindergarten through sixth grade there. And then sixth grade through the time I came in the air force in Camden, Ohio, which is a village. So I think the population was probably around 800 at the time when I went through sixth grade through, uh, graduated high school there. Uh, and then, so that’s, that’s where I’m from. So, and if you’re all right, the claim to fame, like the, maybe the closest thing around there, I don’t know if you remember Ben Roethlisberger. Okay. So Oxford, Ohio, my grandparents lived there and that’s where Miami of Ohio is. And Ben Roethlisberger went, he was the quarterback there. So that’s kind of a claim to fame for, for Miami of Ohio. But yeah, so like growing up, uh, I wouldn’t say I ever really had an interest in technology other than like when I got a Nintendo, you know, I was about the extent. Manuel: So video games is primarily like your exposure to it. Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was probably my exposure, but I was more of like outside riding my bike. And like, as soon as I could get my like driver’s license and a car, I got a car, like I was just kind of doing things all the time. But, uh, I guess it’ll be fast forward to like after high school, I went to, I went to a, uh, like a small bachelor’s college actually for a few years. And then, uh, uh, and then I got distracted with the, with the girl and got married and started having kids. Uh, so started working in a, uh, so I’ve had a, I’ve had a kind of a wide range of jobs. So I actually worked for a sewer rehabilitation company before I came in the air force. So anywhere from, and you could make the joke, it’s a crappy job, but anyway, uh, but, uh, so I worked for them like two, two and a half, three years before I came in the air force. Um, like they like cleaning, cleaning old lines, repairing, testing, testing new lines. So we did the kind of a wide range of everything. So one, one thing that kind of, and I tell that because one day on a job at, uh, if you’re familiar with, uh, Sharondale, it’s right outside Cincinnati, the GE. So GE, I’m sure everybody’s, so we, we had a job where we were working on sewer line at the GE plant, like where they’re doing jet engines. And so like growing up, my dad worked on, uh, he was a jet engine mechanic, but he was not, not a jet engine mechanic. He was an airframe mechanic. So he just worked on the airframe, not the engine itself. And I kind of saw that kind of growing up and then, uh, working...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez interviews Adam Lopez, President of CMIT Solutions Las Vegas, a managed service provider specializing in cybersecurity for small to medium-sized businesses. Adam shares his fascinating career path that began without a formal tech background. Starting as a slot machine technician at Las Vegas casinos, he developed an interest in the databases behind gaming systems. Through curiosity and initiative, Adam built project management skills that propelled him through increasingly senior roles. Episode Highlights: Adam’s early tech experiences, from building circuit boards to a shocking lesson about electricity How he transitioned from hospitality management to technology through casino work The development of his natural project management abilities His career-changing experience working on cruise ships, which took him to all seven continents Navigating transitions between operations and vendor roles in technology Challenges of managing technical teams and handling workplace dynamics Making the leap from corporate roles to business ownership Practical advice on taking strategic risks and recognizing when to make career moves Adam’s journey demonstrates that career growth often requires stepping outside your comfort zone—sometimes even taking a step back to ultimately move forward. His story offers valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage of their careers. Whether you’re just starting in technology or looking to advance to leadership roles, Adam’s practical wisdom on building transferable skills, managing teams, and navigating the industry will help you chart your own successful path. Listen to learn how being open to unexpected opportunities and having the courage to take calculated risks can lead to a fulfilling technology career. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #CyberSecurity Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone. So my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career and how they’ve managed it over time to really be able to uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Adam Lopez and I had met him at a networking event. So this was for SIM, so the Society of Information Managers. We had connected on LinkedIn. I had seen his kind of his career path and found a lot of interest in kind of the trajectory that he had. So I asked him to come on and he more than graciously accepted. So with that I’ll introduce Adam. Adam: Hey thanks for having me, Manuel. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and kind of sharing your career trajectory. Adam: Absolutely. Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with my guests is if you just kind of give us a brief summary, just kind of tell us what your current position is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities. Adam: Yeah, sure. So currently I am the president of CMIT Solutions. We are a MSP cybersecurity company. So we predominantly do it in the cybersecurity space, but we also do MSP, which is your help desk for small to medium-sized businesses. Typically our market is small to medium-sized businesses, but we also do government as well, as well as enterprise, you know, just depending on the level. We are a franchise that’s been around since the 80s. Kind of funny story about the franchise. CMIT used to stand for Computer Moms in Informational Technology. So it was a mom that started the business and she used to go around and fix people’s computers. And so when I heard about the story, I love the story. I love the everything about that. And I was like, how do I get involved? So now, you know, now I am the president here in Las Vegas and it’s been great. You know, I work with a lot of the same people you guys work with as well, as well as I work, you know, with the casinos in town, a lot of the small to medium-sized businesses that just don’t have that understanding of what cybersecurity is. Like, you know, most small to medium-sized businesses don’t understand they need it until they’re breached, right? Kind of scenario. So those are the kind of things that we do. And then I have a team here of system administrators, network engineers, technicians, help desks that are locally here that help support me in my business. So most of the time, you know, it’s a lot of going around to understand what businesses are needing, keeping a pulse on what’s going on in cyber because it’s changing daily, if not hourly. And then also, you know, managing a team. You know, I have a huge team here that I need to make sure that, hey, they have things under control that they’re running on. I fully trust my team. I’m very happy that I have a good team. But again, to get to that point did take some time. Manuel: And now, just to kind of work our way up to that. So if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of got you interested in technology. Like everybody has a different point in time that kind of where that bug or that desire to kind of learn more started. So what was your introduction? Adam: Yeah. So, you know, didn’t come from a tech background. My father was a welder. Mom was a home caretaker for elderly people. So didn’t have a lot of tech. So my first tech thing was a Super Nintendo that I bought myself. I had to work for it and pay for myself. And then I just kind of got involved with it. I saw, you know, started some cool stuff around the house, like building some these little circuit boards that you used to make. And you used to make lights go bright and dim and stuff like that. You remember those? And then my famous story is that back in the old days, when I was a kid, they had cordless phones. Remember the ones they pull out? So I had this, I got one from the thrift store because back then they were expensive. So we got one from the thrift store, you know, being thrifty as we were. And I’m going to make this thing work. So, you know, I started taking it apart. And it’s always taking it apart. It’s the easy part, right? Putting it together. So I’m taking this thing apart and not knowing nothing about electricity. I’m like, oh, I need to splice this wire. And so instead of using my finger, which I didn’t, I used my teeth with 120 volts plugged into the wall. And, and, you know, I learned that way about electricity, but also I learned, it was kind of funny. That’s how I got my, you know, kind of, it excited me. I was like, technology is this cool kind of scenario. So it’s kind of drove me. So I’ve always had that on my mind kind of scenario, what I wanted to do. I went to school for something totally different. I went to school for hospitality management at Las at UNLV, which is the feeder part. So I grew up in San Diego, you know, went to a feeder school out there called Mesa, Mesa Junior College. So, you know, got my two year associates there in hotel management. And I’m like, what do I do? You know, UNLV has one of the best hotel programs in the nation applied. I got in, I’m like, wow, that’s cool. So started that journey through UNLV. You know, not to say I put tech aside. It was just like, you know, in my day, tech wasn’t big. This was very early, you know, of the 2000s before Y2K, all that stuff. So tech wasn’t a huge thing back then. So the emphasis was more like, hey, you got to know about tech because, you know, if you’re gonna be a hotel manager, you need to know that we have terminals that people need to check in on. We have credit card machines, stuff like that. But it wasn’t the emphasis. It wasn’t the bread and butter of the career. So, you know, I kept that in mind and said, okay, how do I leverage this? So funny enough, I graduated. What do I do? I got a part-time job at a casino working as a technician. So I kind of said, I want to work on the slot machines to make sure they work correctly. So what we do, go through there, clean them out. You know, if they were broken, if they didn’t accept bills, we’d come in there, clean them out, make sure they work kind of scenario. So I worked for a small casino here in town, eventually led me to Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas, which was a fun job that I got to work at. But in this technology realm, but I noticed that I said, hey, I thought to myself like, okay, these slot machines are great. They’re built on really old Linux technology. Like this career doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere. Like, you know, I don’t know. I don’t see the future. So I started understanding, okay, all these slot machines feed into a centralized database. Now this database is huge, right? It collects all the data for all the slot machine. Every time you put a dollar in, every time you put your card in, all that data and analytics then kind of compresses. And then they create the marketing programs off it. Like I need to get in there. So I started reverse engineering and said, okay, well now I know this job will probably not be here forever because technology will take that over. So where’s that next leap? And I started tracing that back and says, the database is where I need to be. So I started learning about databases. So on my own, just trying to say, hey, what does all this stuff does? So it’s a very simple SQL database, right? That collects all the data. And then they use report generators to report the stuff out. Nothing super complex. So, and again, you know, my background, not super technical, right? I grew up through more of the project management, project delivery role and the product delivery role rather than the technical hands-on keyboard. What I knew I was good at...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Fernando Reyes to discuss his remarkable journey from church multimedia volunteer to Systems Technician II at Clark County. Fernando shares how his technology journey began with a Windows 95 computer his father brought home, which sparked an interest that would later flourish when he volunteered at his church’s multimedia ministry. What started as helping with video recording evolved into a full-time position where he spent 11 years developing skills in production, IT support, and technical troubleshooting. Throughout the conversation, Fernando reveals how he strategically navigated career transitions with a clear end goal in mind: working for Clark County. Despite having no formal IT education or certifications, he built his technical expertise through hands-on experience, YouTube tutorials, and guidance from mentors who recognized his potential. Listeners will gain valuable insights on: Building technical skills without formal education Setting concrete career goals and working systematically toward them Finding and learning from mentors who can accelerate your professional growth Balancing family responsibilities while pursuing career advancement Developing communication skills to effectively present technical solutions to leadership Fernando also discusses the importance of character, loyalty, and commitment in building a successful technical career, as well as his future goals to develop his own business while continuing his work with the county. Whether you’re starting your IT career or looking to make a strategic career move, this episode offers practical advice on career planning and professional growth that you can apply to your own journey. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ITJobs Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experience, and really how they manage their career over time to be able to kind of pull out any actionable advice that you can go ahead and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today, I have with me Fernando Reyes and we’re going to talk about his career journey, which I think is pretty interesting. We’ve had some conversations before and he really had a goal in mind, like an end goal, and he just consistently worked to being able to get there. So he didn’t know what was going to happen in between, but again, he was okay with kind of being able to move back and forth and really adjust over time. So I think it will be a good experience and a good story for everybody to kind of listen to. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Fernando. Fernando: Thank you, Manuel. Thank you for having me. Manuel: Of course, no problem. Glad you were able to come make it and kind of share your background. Fernando: Yeah, of course, of course. Thank you. Well, like you said, you know, it’s been a couple of years with career in mind and goals in mind. As you know, as we get older, we start thinking, hey, what do I really want to be at? So about, you know, five, six years ago, I decided to have a goal in mind. I saw a position I liked and now I have that position, but it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Manuel: Yeah, it’s usually, it ends up that way. Fernando: Right, right. Manuel: So if you wouldn’t mind, just kind of, everybody can get an understanding of who you are. So if you just don’t mind telling us what your current position is and it’s just a summary of, you know, what your roles and responsibilities are. Fernando: Sure. So I am a Systems Technician II. That’s the formal position. I’m a glorified desktop technician, basically giving support to end users with, you know, their computer and anything related to technology, printers, conference rooms, anything else like that. And yeah, that’s basically what I do for Clark County. I work for the county. Yeah. Manuel: And now we’ll go ahead and we’ll kind of start and get a little bit of history about your experience and your background. So if you wouldn’t mind kind of telling me, you know, kind of like where you grew up and then eventually what got you interested into technology? Fernando: Yeah. So I’m from Mexico, originally. I was born in Tijuana, born and raised there. And my dad introduced me to technology pretty early on. I remember one time he just arrived and got us a computer. It was a Windows 95. That was my first contact with technology as in a computer. Right. And I remember that I always liked, you know, electronics. I think we had LP radio and I would mess up with stuff and I would open the electronics and my dad would get mad because I would just try to fix everything. I think that was my first touch with technology. Finally, he got us a computer to my brothers and my sister and myself. And he just teach us how to use Lotus 1, 2, 3 and printing. And then, you know, came PowerPoint. And I remember he had a, he had us for school encyclopedia. It’s called Encarta. That was back in the day, like with just a couple DVDs and you just put them in, research information to use it. And that’s what I think that was basically my first encounter with technology. And I was fortunate enough to, that my dad provided that instrument and allowed us to learn. And, but, you know, as I grew up, I didn’t really get that much guidance. I said, oh, you can have this as a career. And I think I just went for what I thought was okay. You know, I like, I like animals and I like the sea and stuff like that. And, and I decided to go to college for biology. And that was like, you know, my choice. And so I moved to another city. I started going to college and, and then I moved here and to Vegas. I think it was 2007 on December. I remember I arrived here and, you know, I’ve been a Christian my whole life. And, and I, as I started going to church here, they told me, hey, would you want to help out with the, with the multimedia ministry? That was the, the, where the cameras, the recording, the sound, the lights and all that stuff. So I really got into that. And after I started that journey, I, I, I, they gave me the opportunity to, to be there more time, right. To a point where I was hired by my church to work for them. And I was there for 11 years from that point. And it was just, you know, everything just kind of fell into pieces and I was given opportunities and I, I didn’t say no. Manuel: And so then when you got that computer, it wasn’t, it was kind of more of a tool, right? It was a tool for you guys to go be able to do your homework, to be able to do research. So it wasn’t like, hey, here’s a computer. And, you know, like you said, start trying to forge a career out of it. It was really like, Hey, this is probably the future. Right. And it just kind of really did not fall behind at that point. Cause Windows 95, that’s around the time. I think we did 95 or 98 is around the time when we got our computer at home. So, you know, again, it was just like, now you can do your homework, you can do your assignments. Fernando: Yeah, that’s exactly it. And that’s exactly what my dad said. He was very into looking to the future. And my dad was like, Oh, this is going to be the future. So you guys should, you know, take advantage of this. I remember one time he, I got in trouble because I, I took my assignments. I wasn’t elementary at the time. I took it on a paper and printed the paper and the teacher didn’t want to receive my, my paper. And my dad had to go and talk to them about it. But, but yeah, he, he saw the future and, and, you know, he gave us that tool, but that’s about it. You know, he didn’t tell us what you mentioned. Hey, this could be a career for you or anything. Cause he was, he, he, he is an accountant and he, you know, he didn’t really give us any more advice about that. And my mom, you know, same way he, she supported us and he, he supported us as well, but not, they didn’t really give us like a, like a guidance. Hey, you should do this. You just want to choose something, go to college, I’ll pay for it. And that’s it, you know? Um, but yeah, until I got here is where I kind of shifted and I started thinking, Oh, where do I, what do I really want to do? And that’s where everything kind of started to fall, fall in. Manuel: And so him being an accountant. So then my guess is that’s probably where he saw it, right? Cause he’s probably using the computer at work to kind of do, like you said, Lotus one two, three and all that, like being able to do Excel spreadsheets and kind of manage it forward. So then biology, and then you ended up coming here. So then as you’re kind of picking up all the multimedia, right, it’s not, it’s not a PC, but it is a lot of electronics. So it’s, it’s technology. So when they hired you on, what types of things were you doing from there? Was it just kind of basic setup where, you know, if you kind of just walk me through what you, the different skills you were picking up in that role? Fernando: Yeah. So I, there was one, uh, one coworker I had, which basically not my boss directly, but he, he was an authority and he, he, uh, he teached us a lot of me and another, another person, another coworker I had at the time, but I was mostly at the beginning helping with recording during the live services, record, be in the mixer, like, you know, to move the cameras and make sure everything is recorded to a DVD. At the time it was still recording to DVDs. We had a little machine and a little mixers with the screen, with the multi views and everything like that. And that was the b...

Episode Information Show Notes Career Downloads Episode 24: James McDuffie In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez welcomes James McDuffie, Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, for an insightful discussion about building a successful career in technology. James shares his unique journey that began at age 8, running network cables through Silicon Valley office buildings for his father’s ISP business. Key Discussion Points: James’s early exposure to technology through his father’s business Building his first computer and developing a passion for tech The transition from college to his first professional role at GE Spending 17 years at GE and growing from software engineer to technical leader Moving to AWS and adapting to a new technology landscape The importance of mentorship in career development Understanding when to seek new mentors as your career evolves Balancing technical expertise with business acumen The value of admitting what you don’t know Notable Quotes: “I come to work to solve really cool engineering problems.” – James McDuffie “The opportunities are broader than you think.” – James McDuffie Guest Bio: James McDuffie serves as a Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, where he helps enterprise customers optimize their cloud deployments. Prior to AWS, he spent 17 years at GE, progressing from software engineer to principal architect. His passion for technology began in childhood, leading to a career marked by continuous learning and growth. Follow us on all the social media platforms. Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 Connect with James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-mcduffie/ Connect with Manuel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelmartinez-it/ #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #AWS #SoftwareEngineering #TechnicalLeadership Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone, so my name is Manu el Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career, their background, and their experience, to learn how they manage their career over time, with the ultimate goal to really be able to uncover actionable advice for you to go ahead and be able to use as you manage your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me James McDuffie, so he and I currently work together, we’ve had conversations in the past, similiar to what the one we’re about to have today, and I’m very excited because he has had a very unique and interesting career. I like a lot of the things that he’s done, the way he approaches learning and kind of his career trajectory, so again, plug in and download the knowledge. So thanks James, I appreciate you coming in. James: Yeah, happy to be here. You know, we’re down here for re:Invent and might as well make it a double trip. Manuel: Right, take advantage of the time here. James: Exactly. Manuel: If you don’t mind kind of just telling me what your current roles and responsibilities are, and just kind of a summary of what that is, and then eventually we’ll work our way up to that place. Sure, so my current role is a Senior Technical Account Manager for Amazon Web Services, like yourself, and a part of that role is just helping some of our largest enterprise support customers in their deployments on the cloud. So I like to think of it as TAMs are kind of unique in my opinion on the AWS side because we’re less of just someone that’s there to help manage support cases and much more there to be operational architects on the existing infrastructure that you have. So you have solution architects that are very focused on building out new technological solutions, whereas you and I are much more engaged on large migrations and, you know, making sure that they’re running as optimized as possible. Are they right sizing correctly? Are they modernizing correctly? What’s their strategy to do that? What’s the security posture across their organization? So it’s really just, I would like to say an executive level consultant to some of the largest tech companies on the planet because that’s really what it is. I think it’s a very fun and engaging role because every company kind of has their own challenges and you kind of play it by ear to understand what their problem is right now and not only are you trying to be very tactical to solve their current problems, but also very strategic to prevent these problems from ever happening again and then to make sure that they’re architecting fundamentally to prevent those types of problems from ever occurring in the future across any of their newer, you know, future products and strategies. So, you know, it’s a very, very rewarding career path, I think, but one that I was quite, I never thought I’d be in a role like this just because of, you know, we’ll probably talk about in a little bit, but what my background came from on the software engineering side, I never thought I’d be in this type of a role, but it’s fun and I enjoy it. So it’s a great opportunity for me to continue working with some of these large scale customers. Manuel: Perfect. And now we’ll kind of get into, you know, your background and we’ll lead into what eventually got you here. James: Sure. Manuel: What I’ve been doing with guests is really just kind of start off if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up, your background and eventually what kind of got you interested into technology. James: Yeah, so my dad was a software engineer starting off in his career and so I was born in LA here in, you know, just over the hill in California. And early on, my dad tried working for a bunch of companies and he kind of just decided the entrepreneurial route was his. So he started his own company and we had an ISP. So, you know, he had a bank of 144 modems in the closet and we had a T1 line into our house and he kind of needed help doing things. My dad was a big guy who was 300 pounds, six foot two, just, you know, just a very massive man and, you know, strong, tall, broad shoulders. And he couldn’t get into a lot of places. So as his, you know, eight year old, seven year old kid, he’d be like, Hey, you want to run some wire for me? And so I, you know, I started working for my dad at a young age, not as an employee, but more just hanging out with my dad. And I would run networking cables and electrical cables and, you know, I got to use all the punch down tools and stuff. And so he ran that business for a number of years all the way until I got into high school. But during that time, I did a lot. We were in the middle of the Bay Area, you know, a lot of the buildings back then weren’t built for technology or internet. And so whether it was AMD or Intel or Silicon Graphics, SGI, they needed their buildings wired. And so they brought my dad in and my dad’s like, Hey, I can’t climb up in that rafters. Do you want to just pull these wires for me? So, you know, I was eight, nine years old pulling wires in rafters at large companies in Silicon Valley. And that’s kind of where I got my interest in it, because I was always around tech in totally different varieties of ways. I remember my neighbor, you know, because we’re in San Jose, and that’s where kind of we grew up in LA, then we moved to the Bay Area. And in that was like 1988, we moved to the Bay Area. And so I was going through middle school and elementary school and stuff. And my next door neighbor, he did a computer upgrade. And I think he was upgrading to like a 286. So he had a 286 motherboard that he was getting rid of. And I bought a 286 motherboard off him for like 20 bucks or something, right? Because he just wanted to get money off it. So I brought it home. And I was like, you know, I was playing with my dad, dad’s old Commodore and all those computers, because we had tons of them, because my dad was in tech. And my dad asked me, what are you going to do with that? I was like, I’m going to build a PC. He’s like, you’re going to build a PC with a motherboard? You don’t even have a processor. I was like, what’s a processor? Cuz I didn’t know. You didn’t know what a CPU was back then as a kid, right? And so he took me to Fry’s Electronics, and he helped me put together my first computer. And, you know, for my birthday, I had a 286 Compaq with all custom built parts with Windows 3.11 for, you know, Workgroups installed. And it got me super excited. I remember the first time, I don’t know what it is about memories, but you have like the smells and the senses all kind of locked into your memory. I just remember sitting at the desk in my room with my first PC, just absolutely flabbergasted that I had my own computer, right? And so that was super exciting to me. And over the next several years, I just, you know, my dad would install servers for people, you know, he was running his ISP, so it, you know, helped his customers install s...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Pradeep Pulipati, founder and CEO of Tropoleap, a cloud AI and cybersecurity company. Pradeep shares his remarkable journey from discovering ham radio in ninth grade to becoming a technology leader and entrepreneur. Key Discussion Points: Pradeep’s introduction to technology through ham radio and how it sparked his passion for wireless communication His educational path through electronics engineering and the transition to virtualization technology Experience as an early VMware expert when virtualization was still a novel concept Leadership philosophy developed through managing multiple engineering teams The importance of encouraging continuous learning and skill development in tech team Why solving business problems should be the focus of technology implementation His “T.O.P.” framework: aligning Talent, Organizational needs, and Passion The significance of transparency in leadership and team management Journey to entrepreneurship and founding Tropoleap Insights on career development and professional growth in technology Notable Quotes: “Their resume should always be up to date, as in not just updating the dates, but updating your skillset. Because you could very well be an administrator of something for 10 years, you wake up one day, and the technology might not exist that day.” “Art of the possible and fail fast, recover fast – those are the two cornerstones for how I go about my life today.” Connect with Pradeep: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pradeeppulipati/ Connect with Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #Leadership #CloudComputing #AITechnology Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their career, and just the different things that they’ve done to kind of navigate their career over time to really be able to pull out actionable advice for you to go through and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Pradeep Pulapati and he has a very interesting background. We have crossed paths through a VMware User Group. I’ve kind of seen some of the different areas that he’s been involved with and, you know, we’ll get into kind of what he’s doing now. He’s ventured on into his own business. So I think these are all things that are really interesting and, you know, will be valuable to people. So with that, I’ll introduce Pradeep. So hey Pradeep. Pradeep: Hey, hey Manny. Manuel: Appreciate you coming on. Pradeep: Yeah, thanks for having me. Manuel: Of course. And really, so what I’ve been doing with all of my guests is if you can just to start off, give us your current role and some of the, you know, just a summary of the responsibilities and then eventually we’ll kind of lead into how you got there. Pradeep: Yeah, absolutely. I’m founder and CEO at Tropoleap. We are a cloud AI and cybersecurity company. It’s been about close to 18 months since I started this company and have been working in the gaming industry, have been helping clients outside of the gaming industry, both in healthcare, financial services, so on and so forth. Manuel: So now let’s kind of go back and we’ll kind of lead into what eventually led you to kind of, you know, opening your own business, but really give me an understanding of kind of some of your background, like basically where you grew up and then eventually what kind of got you interested into technology. Pradeep: Sure, yeah. I come from India, the southern part of India called, it’s a state called Andhra Pradesh and I’ve come from a city called Vijayawada, very close to Hyderabad, which is the kind of the Silicon Valley of India, so to speak now. So I think my first love with technology was when I was introduced to ham radio. So I was actually, my dad actually got me into ham radio when I was in my ninth grade. So that was my first passion for wireless technology. I was just amazed by how interestingly you can communicate between people across the world using the satellite because if I’m in ninth grade, that was ages ago, there were no cell phones. The only way to communicate with another person is your landline, right? Seeing that at home and going to a place where now this person is using satellite to communicate to another person that’s on the other side of the world was really unimaginable. That’s what got me very interested in wireless communication. That’s my first love with technology, I would say. Manuel: And then, so how long did you use that ham radio and is it something that you still kind of continue today or eventually just with all the responsibilities eventually kind of fell? Pradeep: Yeah, like anything else, when I came to the U.S., one of the hurdles was for me to re -certify because as a ham radio operator, you have to go through an exam, like two exams back in India to certify and the wireless planning commission of India will give you a certificate saying you’re authorized to use the ham radio because as a ham radio operator, you can get on to bandwidths that are sensitive as well. So you have to go through thorough background checks, so on and so forth before you can use it. But now I think things are a little bit more open. So like anything else, I think it kind of went back into the background as I was getting more focused on education and career. But recently I introduced my son to ham radio, so he just picked up Morse code, so he can actually go through the Morse code by himself now and then comes the electronic circuitry portion of it that he needs to learn. But yeah, I’m still trying to keep it alive in the family. Manuel: Oh, that’s awesome. So then, you know, this is in ninth grade and you mentioned you continued on with your education. So when you discovered ham radio, is this something that eventually kind of led you down towards looking at an IT career? Did you kind of go to college, start working? Pradeep: Yeah, so in India, it’s typical for your parents to want you to either become an engineer or a doctor. It’s a very stereotypical thing, but that is the reality, at least back in the day. And I chose to become an engineer and I went into electronics and communications for my bachelor’s degree. And that’s where satellite communication, wireless communication and the electronic circuitry that goes into all of it really got my attention. And that was my bachelor’s, was my turning point and truly embracing the technology aspect. Manuel: So your bachelor’s, is it you were taking classes on the technology side of it or as part of the engineering, like how did that kind of… Pradeep: It’s a very structured curriculum. So we start off with semiconductor design, we go into electronics, then we go into communication. So there’s a lot of math in the first one and a half years, but after that, it gradually becomes more networking, I would say, is the key part. So if you ask me in a way, fundamentals for my technology career, I would say are around semiconductors and networking. Manuel: As you’re kind of picking all this up and you’re starting to get an interest, now you’re getting the formal education at this point where you’re starting to have an idea of where you might want to take your career or did it kind of take a little while after graduation. Pradeep: Yeah, that’s an interesting question because like I said, my original love was wireless communication. But then once I started reading about or studying semiconductors and designing or programming microprocessors, so I was writing assembly code with 8086 microprocessors. So that got me into the computer aspects of technology, from the communication. Networking wireless communication was one part, but this was the most attractive part, being able to write any program you want in an assembly language and actually see the microprocessor execute that program, it kind of gives you a thrill. And that kind of was like, well, what is next? What is the next path once you go past assembly language? So that was kind of my, I would say, path into technology. Manuel: Was it something where you thought, okay, I want to be a programmer at that point? Is that kind of, you said, you know, that got you into technology? Pradeep: Yeah, interestingly enough, what fascinated me more was not the program that I was writing, but this amazing piece of hardware that’s capable of understanding what you’ve written and executing. So my mind went, well, how does someone design a microprocessor? How does someone design a chip? So that led me into my master’s degree, which was about embedded systems, VLSI, so chip design and manufacturing. Manuel: Interesting. So you were really like, hey, I n...

Episode Information Show Notes Career Downloads Episode 022: Jay Jackson Takes Us Through His Journey from Entry-Level Tech to Project Management Success In this episode, host Manuel Martinez welcomes Jay Jackson, a dynamic figure in the tech industry whose career spans sales, project management, consulting, and education. Jay opens up about his fascinating path that began at CompUSA and evolved into a successful career in project management and consulting. Jay shares how his early experience in video games shaped his approach to problem-solving and business challenges. He explains his innovative RAKSE framework for building a professional brand: Reputation: The foundation of career success Ability: Understanding and leveraging natural talents Knowledge: The role of formal education and continuous learning Skills: Transforming knowledge into practical capabilities Experience: Building a track record of successful implementations Key Discussion Points: Converting an entry-level cashier position into a springboard for tech career growth The natural progression from sales excellence to project management expertise Balancing teaching with consulting to stay current in technology Building and maintaining professional networks through authentic curiosity Real-world project management successes and lessons learned Listeners will gain valuable insights into: How to navigate career transitions effectively The importance of building and maintaining a professional reputation Strategies for continuous learning and skill development Practical approaches to project management The value of authentic networking and relationship building Connect with Jay Jackson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjackson2/ Connect with Manuel Martinez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelmartinez-it/ Follow Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #ProfessionalDevelopment Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career. To understand how they navigated it, different lessons that they’ve learned to really try and pull out actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So, for today’s episode, I have with me Jay Jackson. So we have crossed paths on two different occasions. He has a very interesting background. He has done a number of things, different areas that we’ll touch on as we kind of go through the conversation. And I’ll let him explain that, kind of his ideas on professional branding, the different and things that he’s done, how he’s kind of navigated through different career choices and different roles. So with that, I’ll introduce Jay Jackson. Jay: Hey, Manny. Manuel: How you doing? Jay: Good to see you. Manuel: Good seeing you. Jay: Beautiful house here, Manny. Manuel: Thanks. Jay: I like the setup. Manuel: Took a little bit of work to kind of put it together, but I think overall it’s starting to look semi-professional. Jay: Starting to, right? Yeah I like it. Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with the guests is if you can just kind of start off, just give us your current role or position and then just kind of a summary of some of the responsibilities and things that you kind of do in those roles. Jay: So I’ve got a lot going on. So, you know, cut me off if I’m going the wrong direction. But right now I teach at a local college, a couple of them actually. And my main role as an instructor in the Networking and Cybersecurity program and the classes I teach, I’ve taught are introduction, I like intro classes, because it’s like getting someone interested in a concept, I’ve taught introduction to Linux, Introduction to Information Systems, Project Management, Networking, and Introduction to Cloud Computing and helped develop their AWS Cloud Architect class with someone from AWS. I believe you know him. Manuel: I do. Jay: Great guy. [Laughter] So, I’ve done that and I’ve helped with the project management at the grad level here at local college. So that’s my teaching. And then I also consult, because teachers don’t make a lot of money, so it’s good to have that extra income, right? And consulting, I generally do project management. And that’s everything from managing software projects, which I’m doing primarily now, to implementations. I’ve done, as you know, you’ve helped me out on some data center implementations, little data center implementations. And also, if a company has an enterprise application that needed help implementing, people think that I go to Best Buy, buy software, install it, and then we’re done. That’s not how it works, right? [Laughter] There’s a lot that goes on to make the implementation successful. So we do the soup to nuts entire life cycle of the implementation. And really odd things, like every now and then I get a call saying, hey, I need to make a website, and I’ll help out manage it, or I’ll do myself, if it’s really simple. That’s because I’m interested in projects. So whatever becomes interesting, and it sounds great, and I like the person I’m working with, that’s what I’ll do. I also have a couple of companies I’m a part of, I’m a part owner of. One of them is a car dealer wholesaler. And we’re looking to, you know, technology is like evolving so rapidly now. For those people who are leveraging the newest stuff, AI, APIs, they have an advantage over those, especially legacy industries, like car sales, pretty old school. So I’m working on a project where we’re trying to leverage APIs and AI to understand the true value of a car and what it’ll take to get it to a certain level. So working on that project, and I’m also doing house flipping in Indiana with my brother, part of that, which that one’s not really interesting too much, technology too that we’re trying to, but it’s been pretty messy. So, and then I’ve decided hobby stuff that I do every now and then, like refurbish electronics from Amazon Returns at the eBay store. I still do, but I’ve kind of slowed down on that. And everything I do kind of use it as a mechanism to teach students if they’re interested. So I generally will bring a student on to help out and they get the experience and I get the energy from them, the excitement of doing something new. It’s kind of a win-win. Manuel: It’s very interesting, like how you’re using all these different avenues. And similar to you, right? I see a lot of these businesses and when they’re not leveraging technology, I had another guest on where we’ve talked about it, like where she was working at a hospital, like she got out of tech, started working in the hospital, but she saw a lot of inefficiencies like where technology, process, procedure, like things that were used to, and especially you, you know, with project management, like, hey, here’s steps that we follow, just building a lot of efficiency and you being able to go through. And like you said, the auto industry, like, you know, most people wouldn’t think that that’s somewhere where AI and, you know, APIs would leverage, but the way that you’re doing it, it sounds like you’re trying to kind of, when you say what it would take to get there. So are you kind of understanding, hey, based on mileage, condition, what is it at now? And kind of to bring the value up for the resell, like 10 grand, hey, what are the items that would be needed based on, I’m assuming you’re using AI to just kind of do research for you, right? Jay: Yeah, so, you know, information gathering and making decisions takes time, right? And also, you know, just to walk through it, you go to the auction, right? You see the car and you need to know the value of the car when you’re bidding on it, because you want to take the car, this is triage, right? I’m sorry, arbitrage, this is arbitrage, which I, you know, I’ve done that for a while. You take something, you add some value to it and sell it for more. And the more value you add to it, obviously the more margin you make. But in order to do that, you need to know the potential of whatever you’re getting, whether it be electronics, car, anything really. And that’s kind of hard to do if you don’t have experience in the domain. And, but the information is out there. And also, an auction is kind of a fast-paced environment. So you need to make quick decisions and very time consuming. And I have a very good friend of mine who kind of showed me the ropes, helped him open up his dealership here in 2007. And it’s a lot of work. You get there early at the auction, you have to like do a bunch of stuff. But all that’s been done forever and there’s data out there t...

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Cynthia Hara, a successful cybersecurity sales executive, who shares her fascinating journey from aspiring fashion designer to thriving tech sales leader. Growing up in Silicon Valley with an engineer father, Cynthia initially planned a career in fashion design. A pivotal moment at a career fair changed her trajectory, leading her to discover opportunities in technology and sales. She openly shares how she turned what could have been seen as a disadvantage – being one of few women in her information systems classes – into a strategic career advantage. Cynthia provides practical insights on: Starting in tech sales with no prior experience Making the transition from cold calling to enterprise sales Building and maintaining professional relationships Negotiating salaries and benefits effectively Creating valuable business networks Establishing yourself as a trusted advisor Starting a non-profit to support women in tech A particularly valuable segment covers her approach to mentorship and coaching, explaining the crucial differences between the two and how to leverage both for career growth. Cynthia also discusses how she built her professional brand and shares strategies for standing out in a competitive field. This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in tech sales, career transitions, or professional development. Whether you’re just starting your career or looking to advance to the next level, Cynthia’s experiences and advice provide actionable insights you can implement today. Follow Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 Connect with our host: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelmartinez-it/ Connect with our guest: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiahara/ #CareerDownloads #TechSales #CareerAdvice #WomenInTech #ProfessionalDevelopment Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experience, and just the different ways that they’ve managed their career, to really be able to pull out those actionable items for you that you can go ahead and implement as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Cynthia Hara and we met a few years ago. She is on the technology sales side and she’s done a lot of interesting side projects. There’s a lot of speaking that she’s done, so I think she brings a wealth of experience. Not everybody wants to do the hands-on keyboard, but she still is involved in technology, understands a lot of that and some of the business problems, so I think there’s a lot of good information that she’s going to provide to everybody. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Cynthia. Cynthia: Awesome, thank you so much for having me. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on. It’s definitely something that I think is of interest, so I’ve, you know, I think around the time that we met, I was also on the sales side, but I was on the sales engineer and, you know, you’re more on the account manager side, but definitely I think that you’re going to provide a lot of good information just in the conversations we’ve had, you know, indirectly and on our own. Cynthia: Awesome, well thank you. Manuel: So just to kind of, what I’ve been doing with everybody is if you just briefly tell me kind of what your current role is and some of the responsibilities and then, you know, from there we’ll kind of, we’ll start at the beginning and just kind of work up to that. Cynthia: All right, yeah, so when I know when you and I met a few years ago, I was working as an account executive for a global cybersecurity company. And then since then, I now work at another cybersecurity company. So I moved about three years ago. So I just finished my three years at Rubrik. And so I’m still doing account executive. What that means is I’m customer facing. So working with customers to essentially identify, you know, what are their cybersecurity initiatives? How can we help them from a ransomware recovery perspective? And then, you know, having more executive level conversations around how do we continue to improve, especially because as you know, you know, security attacks keep on going up. And the cost of that always goes up as well. So just trying to help them manage their risk. And so I’ve been loving it. Yeah, so that’s, it’s basically the summary. I mean, a quick summary of my job. Manuel: Cool. And now, if you don’t mind giving me a, and again, you can, doesn’t have to be in full detail, but just give me an idea of kind of a little bit of your background, kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you interested in technology. And then I guess kind of eventually, you know, into that realm. Cynthia: Yeah, I grew up in the Bay Area. So really the heart of technology. But when I was growing up, I never really considered technology for myself. My dad was an engineer, though. But I just, I thought I was going to go into fashion. So I used to Google, you know, free fashion internships.com to try and find something nothing they’d never pay in the fashion industry. So you had to work for free. But I went to a career fair for an art school thinking I was going to go into an art program, be a fashion designer, get on Project Runway, move to New York City. And I vividly remember I was standing in line behind this, this young woman, and she had a pizza box and just opens up this pizza box that all these types of her artwork, textiles, you know, sketching. And in my head, I was like, Oh, God, I am not creative enough for this. So I quickly pivoted, I said I would go into business school. And so I ended up going to Cal Poly SLO, go Mustangs, and studied business there. And it was in the business program that you could pick concentrations. So you had to take at least one class from each concentration. And one thing I noticed when I took my information systems one was, I was one of maybe a couple of women in the class. And I thought, you know, this could maybe be to my advanced advantage in the future. So I decided to concentrate in information systems. And that’s pretty much why I’m here today. Manuel: And what was it that really made you think that that was going to be an advantage? Because a lot of times, just in my own experience and talking to other people, sometimes they feel that that might be almost a disadvantage, right? Like there’s so many other people that, you know, in that case, so many other males, I’m the lone female, or, you know, one of probably a handful. So what made you think that that’s an advantage versus a disadvantage? Cynthia: Yeah, that’s a great question. I guess I’ve never really been asked that before. I guess I just look at things differently. I never looked at that as that’s going to be a disadvantage to me. I think that, you know, in this day and age to everything’s so competitive, that you want to stand out. So if I can immediately stand out just by being the only woman, then I was like, that that already will, you know, set me apart. And then from there, I also need to make sure that I know my stuff and can be, you know, seen as appear for maybe some of the male colleagues that I would have. So I didn’t really look at it as like, Oh, this is going to be scary. I’m the only girl. It was kind of like, Okay, this I can stand out and then take it from there. Yeah, yeah. Manuel: And then having your dad as an engineer, I mean, was there any kind of exposure? Did he I mean, I know you mentioned that you were in a fashion, but was there any kind of like, hey, engineering or were you exposed to it even just seeing him do it at home? Cynthia: Not really. Actually, he was pretty, pretty hands off in terms of, you know, what I wanted to do, you know, they were my parents are both very supportive if I were to pick fashion. And of course, after realizing that I maybe want to stick to something a little bit more technical than creativity, they were still supportive of that as well. I wish I could say more like, Oh, yeah, you know, I was learning technology as a young kid in the in the Silicon Valley, but it really wasn’t like that. I just wanted to do something that, you know, I could still have I was thinking I would have like a day job, you know, work at a desk, but look cute, that was going to be my way of channeling my fashion, my pre fashion notions into just my everyday outfit. But I just I kind of stumbled into cybersecurity, if I’m being completely honest, I was taking an information systems class, which was about networking, actually. So I was just learning about firewalls and the OSI model. And I had a sorority sister post in our ...